hop skip jump

bird in the hand

Audrey has been showing interest in sewing again - a few weeks ago she asked to make a toy. Yes! After looking around for ideas (ie: me reigning in her wonderfully grand plans to something a little more suitable for a beginner), we settled on this bird (pattern from my book). She needed a little help wrangling the machine/following the pattern, but mostly managed it herself. When we've tried this kind of thing before it's ended in frustration on her part. Eight must be the magical sew-all-by-yourself age we were waiting for all along.

On the subject of sewing patterns, some of my PDF patterns are now available through Pink Chalk Fabric. And, as always, here, too. :)

hoot sweet (and not so sweet)

Henry turned four a couple of weeks ago, so we made chocolate owl cakes to celebrate again this weekend with my lovely visiting Dad. My little buddy was in charge of smartie sorting and eye placement - the owl in the bottom left hand corner is my favorite. (Owl idea found here via pinterest, of course).

Unfortunately our chocolatey friends were not enough to deter the person who broke in to our house Friday afternoon. The kids and I arrived home and caught him in the act - thankfully (oh, so thankfully) we hadn't quite made it into the house where he was, so were are all safe. Not nice, and not exactly the kind of memories I'm keen for our kids to have. Bah!

summer

Well. I didn't intend to make that such an long break from blogging. But, you know, once you get out of the habit it's difficult to get started again. I've done a fairly pitiful job of documenting this holiday season, but the past weeks can be summed up, in part, by these few words and photos:

Gingerbread houses, christmas baking (chocolate sugar cookies via Alicia, bills orange & cardamom biscuits & spiced brown sugar cookies), bath gloop (that one was in the advent calendar), guinea pigs (from the big guy for our big girl), strawberry picking, slip'n'sliding, friends from near and far, hot weather, too much eating...

Hope you are all well. Now my toe has been dipped back into the blog, I'm sure you won't get rid of me.

lately

Lately...
- our two chickens, who have been with us since Easter, started laying flourescent-yolked eggs just when we thought it would never happen.
- Henry's love of vehicles has not cooled at all. Nor has my addiction to Pinterest. Worlds collided when we sorted some of his cars similar to this.
- I dipped my toe back into toy making (after some post-book toy burnout) and finished up a monkey for a lovely new home.

PS: Thanks for your very kind words after the last post. You are all ace.

unfinished and finished

I finally sewed my Umbrella Prints trimmings, but with family goings-on and finalising book stuff, I was - of course - too late to make the competition end-date. The finalists can be viewed and voted on at Amy's blog here. I ended up making this little patchworked quilt top, but ran out of time to quilt and assemble it into a cushion. The wonky crosses were loosely inspired by this Lotta Jansdotter pattern. Ah, love a bit of Lotta.

Oh, and a whopping belated thankyou (THANKYOU!) so much for all the lovely feedback about my foray into book-writing. I turned in the manuscript about 6 weeks ago, and all the toys were packed into three boxes and sent to Melbourne last week. That was a nerve-wracking day (they arrived safely, phew). So, although there will be other bits and bobs to attend to, my part is - for now - done. Finished! Unbelievable. The plan still is, I think, for publication by the end of this year, but I shall keep you posted.

Now I'm looking forward to catching up on everything else that has been neglected for the past 7 months. Reaquainting myself with my lovely husband and children. Watching some guilt-free tv in the evenings (Masterchef, I'm looking at you). Cracking on with a new quilt or two. Blogging more than once in a blue moon. And finally activating that Pinterest invitation that has been waiting patiently in my in-box. Oh, yes indeed.

 

hello again

Hello blog, it's been a while. I feel bad for letting this place go to wrack & ruin, but things got a little out of hand in my world over the past months. Long spells in hospital for a couple of family members, plus Audrey with pneumonia over christmas all left me with nothing much to talk about (actually, LOTS to talk about, but nothing that's really mine to share, you know?) Thankfully, Audrey is much better, and no one is currently in hospital. As of right now, anyway. It's been very much like that. Knock on wood, etc etc.

Anyway. I have missed being here, missed my blog friends. Thanks again to the kind people who emailed/commented when I dropped off the face of the earth. I appreciate it much more than I am capable of expressing! Meanwhile, I have been squirrelled away in this work room of mine quite a bit, and good things - fingers crossed - are on the horizon. xx

 

mabel

While things continue to be less than ace for us here at the moment (it's not a good time to be related to me, I tell you, I seem to be jinxed!), I thought I'd just pop in here to say hello. So, hello! Thankyou for your nice words about my Mum, she is much improved and we have fingers crossed that she may be home for christmas. Thanks so much for continuing to pop by here, I hope you are all well. And I hope to get back to blogging more regularly soon, but in the meantime here is a photo of a recent doll, Mabel.

lately...

Lately with my Mum still quite unwell, there has been a fair whack of doom and gloom around here. Aside from that very important-to-us and sometimes overwhelming fact, I am busy with a big work project. Some nice evenings, though, I have been settling in with Matt and watching some amusing telly (IT Crowd, anyone?) My favorite part of toymaking is easily the hand-stitching. So while loafing on the couch, I have been finishing off these two dolls, Walter and Polly, for some nice clients.

Other good stuff lately:
- Hillary's book, Wee Wonderfuls. Wow, what a book. Hard-bound, gorgeous photos, fun projects. What's not to like?
- This ace list of Australian independent textile designers.
- Cancel your delivery of White/Yellow Pages and save a few trees!
- Tiel is having a greeting card sale. We are all stocked up now. :)

back in black

Um, hello? I hope you are still there. That was a mammoth blog absence. Busy times, with my Mum in hospital and general life stuff keeping me away from the computer.

I always find it difficult to dip my toe back into blogging after a break, so perhaps a list to start things off? Nice things that have happened during the past month:

1. We found ourselves with a few spare hours at home last weekend, and Matt painted the wall behind our desk black. It's phase one of our study schmick-up - more about that later. (The black wall was heavily influenced by the gorgeousness found at The Marion House Book and Door 16). Here is a before. This photo will hopefully remind me what it's like to have a clean desk, as I'm sure soon enough it will be covered with teetering piles of paper. For now, I love it.

2. Audrey turned 7. We had a very low key birthday for her this year, but I did make my big girl a chocolate piniata cake (from the good old WW Kid's Cake book). I still can't believe this worked out. It gave a convincing crack when she whacked it with a toy mallet, too.

stuffed - and a wee favour...

I've been working on a new flock of toys. While I was working on this giraffe yesterday, I realised I hadn't mentioned that I am using wool stuffing now - since my motherload of polyfill finally dried up earlier this year. The wool is LOVELY. It's more pricey and takes longer to work with than the polyfill (although that could just be me), but is so worth it. I get mine form Winterwood. The toys feel less 'bouncy' but have a beautiful warmth to them that the synthetic stuff just can't achieve. And while you have indulged me to crap on about stuffing for a paragraph, I am dying to try this, too. It's so good to have some sustainable alternatives to polyester.

On a completely different note, can I ask a favour? My lovely bloke suffered the humiliation of entering himself in a 'dad joke' competition so that we might have the chance of winning a holiday. Little did he know that all shortlisted entries needed to be voted on in the public domain. Ha! If you have a moment, you can see him make a dork of himself here (Matt is the 3rd one across in the second row) - please vote so his humiliation is not in vain - you get a 20% off book voucher! Thankyou!! xx