miss adorable frock

Straight and to the point: The project! I'm trying to make everything in the "Sew La Tea Do" book. No particular order, just what strikes my fancy...

miss adorable frock

This dress was a delight to make, the instructions were easy and it was the first time I didn't have a melt down. It was also my introduction to front and back facing. Great way to learn on something this small. I did everything (laying out, cutting, sewing, and finishing) in one night while everyone slept.

My only compliant is that as a novice seamstress I wasn't to sure how to quite finish up the back facing area. The instructions in Sew la tea do kind of didn't explain how to neaten and finish. I worked it out and I think it came up neat and tidy.The pocket in the pattern was too small, totally unlike the generous pocket pictured in the book. I improvised.

Also the dress is really sized for a petite 3 year old, the pattern suggests it will fit a 12 month old to petite 4 year old. I have a petite 15 month old and it was way too big, perfect on my petite 3 year old though. Luckily I have all bases covered when it comes to sizes of children. Eliza just wears it as a top.

At first the dress did earn what was becoming a trademark "aaarghhh! I hate it!" from her. Maybe it's the fact that I am yet to actually wash the fabric before I sew it so she's probably just squirming in it feeling itchy. None the less her reaction is always a little disheartening.

I will report though that she has worn the dress three times so that's progress, and tonight while we walked on the sand she figured out she could put shells in the pockets!

friday still life

menu I, originally uploaded by various brennemans.

it was all yellow

There are a few things I am really loving at the moment, thought I'd share with you just what has inspired me and what I have produced as a result.

I am in love with Yellow, full stop. This colour was so overlooked by me, never got my love, now I want to be bathed, in it want to wear it, want to paint with it. Me and this new love took drastic measures to seal our commitment to each other: I painted a Ikea kitchen stool in Dulux's "Daffodil yellow."

Wow. I love it, the kids think it's awesome and it is certainly a pop of colour.

I am finding fabric so inspiring whether it be some new bargain ream of end of line floral blue, yellow and orange cotton or some old pillow cases with retro prints. Seeing my little baby's chubby feet poking out from some newly made yoga pants is too scrumptious, 30 pictures later and I think I may have one to share.

Receiving fantastic vintage buttons from Beatrix whilst she was away in Tasmania, we both adore buttons. I love the "will not be hurt by hot iron". I am imagining all the ways to use these blue buttons picked up by the friend she was staying with who knew about my obsession with old buttons.

Fabric bundles even made it to the eye level shelf in the dining area- sewing area

cookbooks were moved down a level, then My heart said "no", I love you both. So bundles ended up on top shelf where some precious things inherited from my mother in law were moved to a safer place. I put those in my glassed cabinet away from my climbing, scaling every surface baby. We are living at the moment with chairs on tables, it's just easier this way.

Making a fabric doll for Circe my baby out of scraps and then having Eliza claim it as her own. After all previous attempts from me to gain some of her love for my sewing projects have gone unappreciated and worse still been given the aaarrhhh. She even rejected the adorable Little Miss Frock in light blue polka dots with a deep pocket for stashing whatever a 3 year old stashes, usually their big sister's stuff.

I am loving pockets I want pockets on everything. When you're a mum there is always LEGO and pegs to pick up. I don't exactly know why pegs make the #2 most common item on the floor in my list of 100 most common found useful yet useless item when bunched with 10 other useful items. So I want everything I make to have a deep pocket, very useful when holding a baby for school pick up, keys can fit in front pocket.

Note my adorable patchwork pocket, see special projects for the disaster of pattern misprint resulting in a way too small dress for Me but fitting 10 year old daughter.

I am filling my recently meticulously scrubbed (thank you Aaron!) fridge -front with Eliza's amazing drawings, here she is at work. She spends and an hour and a half then takes a day or two break then wants to work on them some more her dedication and patience are awe inspiring

All my children are talented, Beatrix spent a day this week making a matchbox bed mattress, doona, and two pillows, for a tiny figurine she had bought. Her blanket stitch is fantastic she too is digging yellow.

Thought I'd share the little nibbles that keep me sane, while sewing. Quince paste on mini toast with leg ham, a square of dark chocolate ,ginger ale and cucumber slices maybe with a dash of pims depending on how indulgent I want to be or how many children I am looking after, and how frustrated I am by said misprinted pattern. Yes I ought to be pretty sloshed by the time I make that last stitch.

apricots, sewing delight, and a few late nights

'fo shizzle, from brenneman.

So after a several busy busy weeks of sewing I still had more projects to do. Each one I finished made two more open up. But that all of that had to wait because food and I needed to touch base again.

Wow. I have made rice paper rolls, spinach pilaf with lemon, we've made trifle (and meringues as you do after you make custard and end up with a whole lot of egg whites), we've had shepherd's pie, stewed apples, apricot couscous (with agave syrup). And, in attempts to distract phoenix from pancakes we've had crêpes. Again.

Some of the cooking was necessity, though. Our fruit trees are are beginning to bear down and drop a lot of fruit, so you have to work at the tree's schedule not your own. They're apricots, of which many have been shared. We can't make use of them all. Fruit leather has been made and eaten and more is being dehydrated as I write. This fruit leather is amazing, just cook it a little and then puree and spread out the puree on these special trays. Even Phoenix who doesn't like apricots will eat heaps of this.

Apricots also made it into the trifle by Aaron. He spent all afternoon on it, we watched it all pile together into beautiful layers. Then he took it to work and they ate it all.

The apple tree is beginning to litter the path with all of it's first not-so-good apples. There is a lot of clean up to be done with just these two trees, I won't even mention our enormous fig in the back yard which looks to give many fruits this year.

In amongst this and that, I was two children short for a while last week, that was different. Sewing was allowed!

I had sent my ten year old on her way to Tasmania on a Friday evening with a just-made pair of yellow pj botttoms, my new favourite colour.

My son then went camping for four days on the Sunday after, I remembered then what it was like with just two children. (It must be said though that a newly walking, climbing baby is like in five places at once so I think she made up for their absences.)

My nights came sooner. The bit of the night that is mine, that is. Sometimes I barely get any, but now there was no "I can't sleep" from my ten year old, no "Water, please" from the little one.

Ohhh the things I got done.

 the wrap skirt

My wrap skirt got finished, and that skirt is one from my special projects, so Yea! to me. I had real trouble at one stage trying to work out sewing the finished sides of the skirt. This book sometimes skips a step or two, but I wasn't sure. I looked and scratched my head and looked again, and pretty soon 45 minutes had gone by with me just standing there.

Aaron was laughing and cursing me to just do something, anything. He said it would be faster to do it wrong and unpick it than to just stand there. He eventually left me standing there with my head in my hands while he went off to read.

I cursed a little bit too, after he left. Bloody wrap skirt! I even gave a little stomp.

I was suddenly dumbstruck. Wrap skirt. I held it against me, and if I sewed the sides together it would be as big as a house. Wrap skirt, darrrhhh. So there was some unpicking and some "rahhh rahhh" going on, but I ignored him.

My only excuse is that it was 1:30 in the morning.

The next day my neighbour and I had a sewing afternoon at my place, that was such fun. Having someone else round seeing what they're making, getting help and giving advice, it's priceless.

This skirt got finished that morning. It did entail a waist band with a tie connected to it, this was "very long" as the pattern stated, but once done I felt like I'd really accomplished something. The instructions for the hem were a little odd, laying hemming tape over the raw edge and then just sewing over that 1 cm from the edge, mmmm not sure if there was an error there, I am guessing maybe.

My neighbour and I got to try on our new wares and even eat dinner out in the garden, she in her citrus toned patchwork belt and me in my orange and green wrap skirt, how perfect.

We thought of how we ought to get all our crafty neighbour folk in on our little sewing buzz and have craft night. Coming soon!

friday still life

monkey grip, from photos by various brennemans.

rainy day, paper boats

rainy day paper, from brenneman.

A paper boat, how dreamy how wonderful things would be if we could just set sail on one. To voyage out to distant lands, maybe out to a place where the wild things are.  When I was little I remember my teacher reading to us Sadako and the 1000 paper cranes, a story of a little girl in Hiroshima.  She was making 1000 paper cranes to try to stave off her death from Leukaemia caused from radiation from the atomic bomb. One version says she only made 644 before she died and her friends completed the others and buried them with her. I had always wanted to do the same.

As my city was awash with rain, sweltering with 97% humidity we all complained of wet clothes, damp and just not drying even indoors, sticky floors my smoke alarm going off at the slightest boiling of water for tea. I made paper boats to sail down the gutters on my street bright and cheery, we wet our hair and our clothes we didn't mind it was warm. My baby only rarely having felt the rain on her skin was dripping, sopping wet  the shrieks of joy the smiles from ear to ear a joy to see. My clothes clinging to my skin my bra visible through my t shirt, I didn't care this was play, play with my children wild and freeing. These colourful boats rushed along the gutter bumped against one another then glided freely again. My 7 year old asked "will the rain ever stop?" 

I wondered myself. It had been steadily raining for six days, it sure seemed like it would never stop. How must they be feeling in those small towns in Queensland, this steadily rushing stream in my street would be nothing compared to what they had seen there. We had dry clothes inside, towels and more paper to make more boats, our boats tattered and tore along the drain as the cranes were meant to as they are strung together and kept outdoors as a wish for recovery from illness or injury. If only things were so simple a 1000 paper boats would fix everything in those little towns.

friday still life

box set, from brenneman.