When your cup of tea saves you

Project weekend is to make a little dress from an op-shopped picnic tablecloth.

Friday I took the red gingham tablecloth with ric-rac trim and embroidery detail, about 90cm square, from the stash cupboard. 

Wish my unpicker really did work by itself...

My heart wanted to be lazy and cut out the dress pattern without removing ric-rac trim.  My head told me that was a bad idea so I duly picked off the trim - and that baby did not come off easily, took nearly half an hour of stitch by stitch unpicking.  I even decided to dunk the trim in a bit of bleach just to make sure it was nice and white for the finished product.

For some reason I left the gingham fabric (now sans trim) on the kitchen bench while I was cooking, I opened a tin of tomatoes and of course tomato juice sprayed on most things in the kitchen, including me, but somehow mysteriously missing the fabric.  After a quick inspection in poor light I decided the fabric had missed serious damage and I removed it to the more safe location of the dining table.

I spent Saturday morning negotiating the tricky business of cutting out the dress front and back with reasonable placement of the embroidered sections of the tablecloth.  The dress front was OK (you have to start somewhere), but the dress back piece eventually had to be made of two separate panels with a joining seam down the middle.  I cut one side out, then pinned the pattern for the other side and was just sitting back for a sip of my cuppa when I realised...at that very moment I was just a few seconds away from disaster. I had forgotten to flip the pattern for the second dress back piece!  Whoa!  I still cannot believe that all lightbulbs and alarm bells went off in my head at that exact moment - I say thanks to my cup of tea.  Maybe there is something about those anti-oxidants and what not in tea afterall? Another cup anyone?

My Creative Space: the last scraps

Not to be deterred by more wet weather in Brisbane I headed outside between rain showers yesterday to photograph the front panel of a wrap skirt that I am working on this week. 

I'm finding wrap skirts pretty good while being pregnant, well at the moment anyway they add a little variety to my wardrobe.  With the onset of cooler weather I am going with adding some black to my wardrobe, I actually like wearing black but its not a very Queensland colour, I think I like it so much because I was bred in Victoria.

The reason for the stripes? I love that flower fabric and I am down to using the absolute last scraps of it!
 

For more creative spaces, pop on over to Kootoyoo!

Easter eggs (real ones, from a chicken)

For the second year running one of our lovely Bulgarian friends here in Brisbane has hosted Easter egg dying and decorating at her house.  From after work onwards last night eager small kids and perhaps maybe less eager adults crowded around a small, slightly wobbly table laden down with bowls of warm dye, lit candles and hot, freshly boiled eggs.  The potential for disaster was high but apart from someone trying to set a cotton bud on fire in the candle and getting dye all over our hands and down under our fingernails everything went without a hitch.

I'm not sure where the dye sachets can be purchased but they are obviously either German or Greek origin, and they come with full instructions if you want to try this yourself.  You simply mix the dye sachet contents in about a cup of hot water and add a splash of vinegar and you are ready to dip in your boiled, warm eggs.  This way you can get nice solid colours...but the real trick it seems is to know how to make some fancy designs.  Many techniques were discussed and demonstrated amongst the attendees, everyone seemed to have a traditional family/childhood "how to" for egg decoration.

You can dip a stick or cotton bud in candle wax and draw over the egg before dying (the wax stops the dye being taken up by the egg shell).

You can add a splash of oil to the dye and this creates a lovely swirl pattern across the shell.

Or my personal favourite is to place a piece of foliage against the egg, pop the whole thing in the end of an old stocking, tie it in as tight as you can and dip the whole thing in the dye. Very pretty.

Or you can just be silly....

We'll be cracking these open on Sunday - you knock them together and the person who's egg shell stays in tact gets the most luck.  They're perfectly edible if you like cold, slightly coloured eggs...

Happy Easter!

Photo interrupted

I've been making away, down in my little sewing den.  Well kind of.  My mess has been migrating slowly upstairs as I am finding its a whole lot easier to get some work done in the living areas of the house rather than in a designated (and isolated) area.  Downstairs at night its very, very quiet and I miss the noise of the telly and chatting to my other half - but now that I have a little sewing space set up I also feel that sewing mess in the dining room is not really supposed to happen anymore.  I know nobody cares where I do my sewing, I figure its OK as long as I clean up after myself every few days (which is more than can be said for the mess of cottons and offcuts I have made on the floor downstairs!).

So I was trying to photo a few of my creations against the wall of the house this afternoon (the hot water system provides the perfect place to hang a coat hanger off), and the little man insisted on being included in some of my shots.  It's unusual for him to actually want to be photographed, so I was happy to oblige.

End of the season

Not the world's most exciting post today, really all I did was make a drawstring bag.  My favourite way of making them is to use this tutorial from Kootoyoo. 

A carry bag for all the small plastic beach toys - just in time for the end of summer.

Why I didn't do this earlier to facilitate carrying toys from car to beach and back to car is really beyond me.  Better late than never I suppose.

The sun and the rain are taking random turns at dominating the weather conditions around here lately.  Just when you think how lovely it is, its bound to start to rain.  I'm just hoping for a last minute fling of beachy weather over the Easter break.  Its only a few weeks away now.

In training

I'm popping this little guy in the mail today - off to Melbourne he goes.

I made one of these for a friend last year and she told me that her baby just loves to have a suck and a chew on the pointy ear things. So while I was photographing him I thought I would double the photo shoot with a training session to get this guy used to the idea of a bit of ear action...

 

...and he got a bit upset with me.

Lucky for him he's going to a newborn so it will be a while before the ear chewing thing kicks in.

Ripe

I picked a lime off our tree.

I had my doubts about ripeness - but it was beautifully juicy and fragrant.

Only one thing to use it for really.

Disclaimer: in my current state, I unfortunately was not able to partake.

Thanks to Nic for THE INFORMATION.

How does your garden grow?

In February we cleared and dug.

Then we planted.

We watched...

...and waited.

In March we are discovering...

...bunches of tiny tomatoes that already smell so good...

...butter beans almost ready for picking...

...that rockmelon plants really do want to take over your garden...

...that zucchini plants are huge and you really should space them about 60cm apart...

...that rosemary has purple flowers...

 

...and that we have no idea how to tell if a lime is ripe.

My Creative Space: one eyed

I finally made it to joining in on My Creative Space this year.  Despite all good intentions my usually prolific crafting vibe has been taking a back seat to.....sleeping.  I'm finding the need to sleep debilitating at the moment, mental strength to concentrate on sewing equals none.  I feel like I am operating with one eye open and one closed most of the time with my head in a fog and a body that needs dragging around.  It's all for a good reason though - I'm just busy incubating my second child.  I can still hardly believe it but I've seen it on the ultrasound, there's definitely a baby in there.

So speaking of new babies, I'm slowly sewing this little toy for my best friend from University who sent me and SMS a few weeks ago to announce the birth of her second son.  It was sure a surprise for me because due to a lost and never received Christmas card I never even knew she was pregnant!  She lives in Melbourne so we see each other rarely, but its the kind of friendship that it doesn't matter how many months or years in between actually catching up we can just pick things up where we left them last.  Friends like that are the most precious, don't you agree?  You know how we met?  We sat next to each other in a lecture theatre at uni orientation day back in 1994.  The most simple beginning to a friendship ever.

Once I get this little fella's other eye sewn on and give him a bit of stuffing I dare say he will be a lot more perky than I am!

For more Creative Spaces, pop on over to Kootoyoo.

All pretty...unsure of it

I am sailing off into unchartered waters with this little skirt.  On the outside it looks great, I am super happy with that gorgeous purple fabric...but I am giving this skirt as a gift and I am really, really uncertain about its fit and ease of wearability.  I have a deep down gut feeling that its all wrong.

I made it following an internet tutorial and downsized it to smaller dimensions.  I was happy with my downsizing calculations but when I actually made it I realised that it was probably going to be too minimal around the waist and subsequently be restrictive around the wearer's legs as its essentially a straight up and down tubular construction through the skirt with the ruffles sewn into it.  If you check out the tutorial and you will see what I mean. 

I have sat and stared at this itty-bitty skirt and considered picking it apart and re-modelling it, but I'm not sure I can made any really serious improvements for the time and effort it would take.

I am going to pop it in a gift bag on a wing and a prayer, and with my fingers crossed.  Maybe two year olds are smaller than what I can remember...