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...

Brain bender

I can't believe how long it took me to downscale a skirt pattern from size 5/6 measurements to size 2/3 measurements.

Being all scientific I was sure that it could be done with a calculator and my jotter pad.  I made a lot of crazy calculations over the space of 12 hours, both in centimeters and inches (go figure why I was doing that, I don't DO inches).  Then when I thought I had the answer I used the "phone a friend" option and asked her to measure up her almost two year old.  My little model had a waist measurement of 50cm (vs. my 48cm calculation) and a waist to knee measurement of 28cm (I was spot on, yeah baby!).

Enough of this mathematics caper.  Tomorrow: fabric!

Progress

And on Saturday I finished painting and moved in. Still some more embroidery hoops to hang on the wall, and I hope to get some shelving installed in the nook on the right hand side...there's all sorts of pattern papers and books that need a home, but the mess of them is conveniently out of shot!

I can't tell you how happy my heart is to see this little space finally coming together. :)

Friday arvo

Reclining on the day bed on the back deck having a meditative stitching session.

Creating a little bit of decoration for my new sewing space.

And thinking about the fact that I had better get a move on with it all as I have to make a gift for a birthday girl for next weekend.

Patchwork

Don't worry, I haven't suddenly turned into a home renovations blogger!  I promise, fabric does feature in at least one photo in this post...

I tried to set up my sewing machine on the built in desk downstairs - but the melamine top of the desk was too thin and flimsy and putting something heavy on it like a sewing machine made a decidedly nasty sag in the desk.  All very wobbly and not functional at all.  So, the desk had to come out.

I raided the tool box and got down to work.  I thought it was just screwed into the wall with big dirty nasty screws, but I realised that if all the screws have come out and the desk still won't move then it must be also glued to the wall.  I selected a few more tools and with some elbow grease I prised the desk from the wall.  To my horror the glue ripped the paint and plasterboard wall, but it isn't such a disaster after all because two things called spakfiller and sandpaper will fix the wall up like new.  I should soon be ready to paint over the patching and install my own desk.

I've also got a "gentleman's wardrobe" that I restored a few years ago ready for organising my gear into.  I piled the fabric inside, but it needs some shelves to be ideal for fabric storage.

Hopefully I'll be making good progress on my little room in the coming week.  Then I'll need a sewing project!

Trying to resume normal programming

Me on the back deck, my sewing space is going to be in the "granny flat" underneath

January has come and gone and its time I got back to my poor neglected blog.  My crafting gear is sitting downstairs also waiting for me to pay it some attention.  I feel tomorrow will be the day for plugging in the machine and having a play around in my new space.

January has been a tiring and exciting month filled with cleaning, sorting, chucking, keeping, packing, unpacking, connecting to essential services etc. - our new house is about 90% unpacked, still got tasks like hanging pictures and getting rid of a few last boxes of "stuff".   We have plans for a few simple improvements, mainly changing things to our own taste, not because there is anything inherently wrong (except for very dodgy television reception). And we have spent time getting to grips with...gardening.  As renters all our lives so far gardening was mostly a hack, chop and mow job around the time of real estate agent inspections.  Now we have a beautiful garden that has olive, avocado, grapefruit, lime, lemon and guava trees along with a few herbs so we hope to be able to expand the herbs and grow a few vegetables in the garden beds as well.  Bearing the responsibility of looking after the garden from a "not a natural gardener (black thumb)" kind of background has been capturing my attention these last weeks.  Gardening over sewing?  What ever will I do next?