So Sue You Can Sew!

Welcome back old blog...

2011-04-26T10:03:00.002+10:00

In the process of starting Patrick his very own blog this week, I have rediscovered this wonderful old friend :)

I still have some of the projects in progress embarrassingly enough, but I have done a couple of other small things lately which I will endeavour to share :)

Hopefully this will give me a little inspiration to feed my soul by crafting, it really does bring relief to my waaaaaaay too stressed head :)

And please do check out Patrick's blog - it is patricksrecipebox.blogspot.com :)

Sue xx

Some more ballet pics

2008-12-13T05:46:00.003+11:00

Well it is less than two weeks til Christmas!!! Completely unorganised here, I have not even bought a single present yet! Might have to up the game a bit next week I think - but that means braving the shops and I HATE shopping! Might have to do what I can online ASAP. Plans of making some stuff for Christmas are fast flying out the window as well, because time is running short, but at the very least I would like to make Patrick and Maia a Christmas outfit, so I need to get cracking with that.

Today though we are going to make some Christmas cards, I got some cute pics of the kids last weekend all Christmassy after we put up the lights. I was pretty happy with my job of doing the lights too, all things considered. I must admit though, I did prefer Christmas lights when I could be the one who 'helps' then watches, rather than doing it all lol - especially when it is 34 degress on putting up day, but that is part of the single mama gig, so it's all good.

And cos I am just such a proud mama of my ballet stars, some more ballet pics to share :)

my dodgy blogginess

2008-12-01T10:13:00.003+11:00

Well once again I have let this lovely little blog down and my busy life has overtaken it. I can't believe I started this a year ago now! I could spend the next hour updating it, but I really should do that later and do some work now, but I will add some pics just so it is not total blog ignorance happening :)

These are from Patrick and Maia's first ballet concert. Maia was the teeniest one in the whole show and loved the stage so much, one twirl was not enough, she wanted to do lots of twirls and stay in the centre of the stage lol. Patrick is the only boy in the entire dance company, he was one of the little piggies and was very very cute!

This one below is from the kindy spring fair, so beautiful :)

I will try and post again before the end of the week (I really will Ness I promise :p)

My poor neglected blog...

2008-10-21T21:18:00.003+11:00

Well I knew it has been a while since I last posted, but I was horrified today to work out that it has been two months!!

I guess that is what happens when work absolutely, completely takes over your life so you barely feel like you can even breathe and since this blog is pretty much a work free zone and there has been nothing but work - not much to report haha.

My no stress motto for 2008 has been well and truely out the window for the last few months and there have been many days with the sense of an impending heart attack, so a few days at Fingal is on the cards when I get back home.

I've left my beautiful kiddies three times in the last two months, which is no fun. Luckily they have been much better on this trip, Maia was not happy with me being away for almost three weeks, but I just found out that Patrick has bitten another child at school twice in the last week, so they are concerned about him. I will be majorly working on getting some stability into their lives when I get back (plus some for my own life would be nice lol) and hopefully things can settle down a bit. They have been through a bit in the last six months and I am feeling a huge amount of mummy guilt from being away so much :(

Anyway, no real purpose for this post other than to not neglect the blog for any longer and I have another hour to kill at Heathrow before I get on my plane to come home. I have lots of pics to catch up on, my awesome birthday cake creation for Patrick's birthday, some very very very beautiful nappies to show off and maybe a couple of other bits and pieces - I will do it soon, this blog is a lovely escape from work and an escape is desperately needed!

Sue xx

This is one for her 21st!

2008-08-22T22:50:00.003+10:00

Yep that is Maia, asleep on the toilet floor!!!! Poor thing I just had to get these pics in before she was moved.

Apparantly what happened was that she was going to do a poo and got a bit tired, so thought she would lie down and she must have fallen asleep ROFL!

I almost feel a bit mean sharing this, but it's just so damn funny I couldn't help myself hehe. At least she was on the mat so a tiny bit comfy.

Life lesson for today...

2008-08-12T08:07:00.003+10:00

I learnt a very valuable lesson today..... if you are getting a passport photo done, make sure you blow your nose before you get it done! Yep that's right, I have a passport photo with a booger showing clearly at the bottom of my nose!!!! I was in such a rush I didn't really look that closely until after I had sent the application off, but surely the chick at the photo shop would have noticed?? Or perhaps it was her way of making the day more exciting or something?!?!?!

Thank god it was just a photo just for a visa application and not for an actual passport so I don't have the horror of seeing it for the next 10 years! I am sure the staff at the chinese embassy will have a good laugh today...

Sue x

The joys of parenting...

2008-08-09T10:04:00.005+10:00

Yesterday was one of those days. You know the type you nearly wish you could rewind and start over.

Being a lazy arse and because it was freezing I snuggling in bed with Maia til 8am, which wasn't a good start, because by the time we dragged ourselves out of bed Patrick was bored, as he had been up for an hour and a half watching telly (the no tv challenge is out the window).

I had to go to Newy to do a few things, but all my morning jobs get ready to take stuff to newy jobs were a total mission and some didn't end up getting done, I was running too late to drop into see the girls at the cloth swap which was a bit of a bummer and forgot to take stuff with me arrgghh. Plus because we were late we had to drop and run at Leah's instead of having a play, so the kiddy boredom increased.

A nice surprise was bumping into Vanessa, Logan, Fletcher and Elliana at Kotara, so we had a quick lunch with them (was very impressed at Patrick's insistence to have healthy food instead of 'skanky M' - my subliminal messages must be having an affect :p) and the boys had a 5 second play - it is soooo cute watching Patrick and Logan play - they lurve each other. Not so much fun was Maia's first poo accident of the day, as I didn't have spare clothes, wipes etc with me, but I got it cleaned up OK.

After driving around for an hour doing various work drop off's/pick ups, next stop was spotlight, I should have know that was a disaster waiting to happen - two bored kids, placated with bribery choccy, which started sending them crazy the second we walked through the doors.

I managed to get what I needed and was just about to walk up to the counter when I smelt more suspicous loggy smell. Maia had done her second poo accident for the day, so I took her off to the feral spotlight toilets for a clean up urrggg. I shouldn't be cranky, she has been getting so much better with the toilet learning, she never wears nappies in the day before (although I might go back to training pants after yesterday).

OK, so clean up sorted and I was heading downstairs and remembered that they had a sale on plain duvet covers and I need one for Patrick's bed to save me taking his back and forth to Brad's, so against my better judgement decided to take the time to get one. Only prob was that while Patrick and I were choosing, Maia disappeared. It only took a milisecond, and she was gone! I was completely panicing - couldn't find her anywhere and was starting to get that OMG someone has taken her, sick to the stomach feeling. Just when I was about to completely freak out, I heard her squeal, one of the spotlight chicks had found her hiding in a rack of clothing. Phew crisis averted, back to buying the duvet cover.

As I was standing at the counter, I got a whiff of that loggy smell again and would you believe it, she had done another nugget, which is why she had been hiding in the clothing rack - she wanted a bit of privacy rofl. The chick at the counter and I were laughing about it when we made a horrifying discovery, some of the nugget had fallen on the floor cos Maia's pants were falling down as she didn't have undies on, and Maia had squished in into the floor with her shoes and there was a 10m trail of poo footprints down one of the aisles!

About then I wanted the floor to open up, I was SOOOO embarassed, plus I realised that Maia had poo squished all down her legs, all over her pants and shoes/socks and I had no clean clothes with me, no wipes etc, so it was back to the skanky spotlight toilet to attempt to clean it all up with soggy toilet paper, whilst the poor cleaner was called to clean up the poo mess all over the floor. As you can imagine I made a hasty exit and enjoyed a lovely smelling 45 minute trip back home. Blah!

Oh what fun, it is to play, poo cleaning up games today ;)

xx

PS this post is dedicated to Vanessa who has been checking my blog daily for updates - I didn't realise it had been nearly two weeks! I'll try and be more regular ;)

Yep that's Dave Grohl - really, it is!

2008-07-28T21:56:00.004+10:00

While I was in fingal I made this amazing discovery that through the magic of bluetooth I could get pictures from my phone to my laptop, so I thought I would share these rather dodgy pics of Dave that I took on my mobile at the foo fighters show in May.

We were a bit late getting to the show, so by the time we got our beers it was just starting, so we decided to hang up the back and finish our beers before trying to get a bit closer. Unbeknownst to us, there was actually a whole second stage up the back and just as we were finishing the beers, the stage came down from the roof and Dave and all the band were right in front of us. It was sooooo cool, I think Brad got a bit sick of me raving like a starstruck teenager "f**k, OMG, wooooo that is Dave Grohl, like RIGHT there" etc etc hey I was excited, it's been a while since I got out ;)

Jen from Nappycino got way better pics than I did when she went the night before, but I am still happy to have these memories of a great night, was a brilliant show, love, love, loved it.

Patrick and Maia the little funksters also shared our enthusiasm for the fooeys, the whole way home from Sydney (and ever since actually), ABC kids CD's have got the arse and they have fought over the CD player and which foo fighters song should be on, Maia quite likes the pretender and generator, Patrick's current favourites are stacked actors (he calles it stacked in a tractor rofl) and long road to run. Patrick's next money saving mission is for an electric guitar and one of their favourite games to play at the moment is 'bands' where they get out the drums, ukelele, tamborine and shakers, plus the microphone that comes with the karoke cd player they got for Christmas.

My Nephew Jack awwww

2008-07-27T20:16:00.005+10:00

At long last, my little sis has sent me lots of photos of my nephew Jack who is growing up sooooo fast! I can't wait until I meet him in September, I get to go on a giant trip and on of the stops is to his naming ceremony, yay!!!! There are lots of pics (sorry if you're on dial up), including some of him in his fluffy stash and some of his very proud and beautiful big sister too. He looks so much like Patrick did when he was a baby, I can't wait for cuddles :D

Small snap in ib

medium sewn in ib

More of Patrick the entrepreneur

2008-07-21T23:58:00.004+10:00

I found these pics on the memory card when looking for something else and I realised that I hadn't put them up, silly me! After seeing the stand at the expo in sydney, Patrick was desperate to have his own stand doing something and he decided that he wanted to sell lemonade. Not sure if that is because of too much curious george, or whether he had seen it somewhere else, but we were more than happy to help with his endeavours - it was a perfect way to use up a bumper crop of lemons too :)

We live on a main'ish road (well as main as you can get in the country), opposite a petrol station, so had lots of passer's by to flag down with the 'waving broom', Patrick was quite the salesman too, calling out to nearly every car that pulled into the servo LOL! He did really well out of it, making about $25 in the end, the perfect amount of $$ to get his precious orange bike off layby, which he was very stoked about!! I'll have to get a pic of him riding, he got the hang of it without training wheels almost straight away and LOVES riding.

This is why I will leave softie making to the experts ;)

2008-07-21T23:45:00.004+10:00

Maia's only request for her birthday was that she wanted a cat, not any old cat, it had to be a black one. Since we are renting, a cat was not an option, so I decided to make her a softie cat, thinking it would be a piece of cake, but I was just a little wrong.

First I thought I could draw my own pattern and just make up a cat, but my few dodgy attempts had me searching out a pattern online instead - I did want it to actually end up looking somewhat cat-like afterall. I didn't really find anything I liked, so ended up using a pattern for a door-stop that is supposed to be filled with beans/rice etc.

The face was supposed to be painted on, but in true Sue style, I didn't actually start the cat making until 10pm the night before Maia's birthday and I didn't have any fabric paints, so improvised with sewing the face on.

I managed to get it done and wrapped up, but my sewing on of the head led a little to be desired and we had a headless cat within half an hour of the present being opened, so the cat had to go back into surgery.

I finally managed to give 'black cat' it's head back on operation while I was at fingal, Maia was delighted to have her cat back and it is now competing with fairy maia for top spot on the bed. She has named her new precious 'frenny' and she loves it very much, so will probably forgive her mama for being a dodgy softie maker ;)

How lucky am I???

2008-07-21T23:33:00.003+10:00

Not just one holiday, but two!! I was supposed to stay up at fingal for a week, but I had to cut it short due to work commitments so only stayed for 5 days. The beautiful Vanessa came up with a great plan, that I should go back home, do what needed to be done for work, then bring the kids back up for the weekend - who am I to argue with such a brilliant idea? I'm so glad I did, the kids had a brilliant time on Saturday, it was so great to watch them all playing so happily!

Patrick, Maia, Logan and Fletcher had a ball at the beach, digging a huge hole big enough for them all to play in, then we all went on an adventure walk through the 'jungle' then went to the rockpools for more fun and play. It's so beautiful watching kids have such a great time :) Fingal is definately one of my most favourite places to go - I love it there so much :D

Earlier in the week, I actually had my camera handy to catch some of the frivolity, all the kids were playing with their mop horses, seeing who's horse could reach the highest and eat the most leaves. Poor Toby though, it's all fun and games until a horse mop tries to eat you ;)

Of course I am feeling even more relaxed now if that is possible, thank you so much Vanessa and Stu!! xx

Relaxed and Refreshed :)

2008-07-17T19:27:00.006+10:00

Well our little break at fingal did me the world of good, I am feeling sooooo relaxed, even though I know there is a mountain of stress ahead of me, I feel like I will be able to handle it without the 'omg I am going to have a heart attack at 34' sensation that came over me before Brisbane.

The kids had a brilliant time too, they LOVED playing with Logan, Toby and Fletcher and I loved all the lovely cuddles with princess Elliana :) Patrick was gutted that we didn't climb to the top of Mt Tomaree though, we got half way up and Maia wanted to be carried and I didn't have the ERGO, plus it was raining, so I abandoned the idea. I did go by myself the next day though and how pretty is the view from the top! No wonder I feel so relaxed there, it really is like you are away from the world, even though it's only an hour away.

I didn't have any problems being bored for the two days on my own, plenty of trashy mags, wine, long leisurely walks, chats with ness and yummy food kept me quite contented. I didn't end up having internet access, which was probably a good thing, as it meant I couldn't do work even if I wanted to, so it was a truely relaxing work free break, yay!

I didn't end up taking my sewing machine in the end, so didn't get too many things finished, I did get started on a scarf for Patrick, hopefully I can finish that before the end of winter ;) and I finally finished up maia's black cat softie, which I'll put a pic up of later. Don't think I will be getting into the softie game any time soon haha

I am still waiting for the situation with Brad to hit me, at first I thought it would be after he moved out, then I thought it would be when I got to fingal, then perhaps it would hit me when I was on my own, but I am still feeling rather numb about it all. Not sure whether I am just a cold hearted biatch, or whether it's been over for such a long time already without us realising that I've been sub-conciously processing the feelings of us splitting for months now, or what is going on. Brad thinks it is because we have never really deeply connected, and whether I ever was truly in love with him, which is a bit sad considering we have spent the last 11 years together. Maybe it will hit me later when I least expect it, but I managed to drink a whole bottle of wine to myself one night while I was away, and I although I felt very reflective and managed to write 7 pages of thoughts and feelings about the situation in my journal, I wasn't crying myself to sleep or anything like that. Who knows what is going on.....

anyway hi ho hi ho, it's off to work I go xx

Basketweave Headbands

2008-07-07T19:38:00.006+10:00

I saw on Eilleen's blog yesterday about doing national blog posting month - doing a post every day for July and since I have been a blogging slacker these last few months, I thought I would kind of play along too even thoough I missed the first couple of days, it's something to keep me distracted from all the crazy goings on around me and motivate me to put some pics of my creations up :) The theme this month is food, so I will try to focus a little on that, but I will be doing well to do a post a day about anything - my life just ain't that exciting, so the food posts may be a little lean ;)

I've been meaning to put pics of this up for a while. A basketweave headband is the perfect way to tame a wild boy's hair ROFL. Patrick's teacher was concerned about his long hair getting in his eyes, but there was NO WAY Patrick was going to have a hair cut and I didn't want to force him, so suggested if he didn't want it cut, then he would have to wear a hairband instead. He thought that was a brilliant idea and chose hot pink wool from my wooly stash LOL. I was going to say no, cos a bright pink hairband on a boy with long hair is just a little too girly - even for me, but hey, who am I to tell him that he can't wear a pink hairband just because he's a boy! Lucky his friends at school think it is pretty cool too, so he hasn't copped any flack or anything, plus his teacher reckons she noticed a BIG difference in his behaviour and attention with his hair out of his eyes, so I'm happy with that :) Today he was a bit hairband obsessed and had two in - me thinks his hair is getting a bit tooooo long, but Patrick disagrees ;)

This pattern is sooo easy, I found it on ravelry, somewhere else I have been MIA from for a little while :( http://carissaknits.blogspot.com/2007/06/basketweave-headband.html is the link. It is the perfect way to finish up little odds and ends of wool left over from other projects. I must admit, when I was making one of these, I felt like the biggest nana in the whole world, I was knitting on the way to the foo fighters ROFL. I never thought I would have considered Dave Grohl knitting music, but hey, this is funky knitting! I'm embracing my inner nana and proud of it :D

my procrastinating sunday afternoon

2008-07-06T14:38:00.002+10:00

I have a massive pile of emails to get through for work, but I have been working on it since 9.30am and slowly loosing motivation, so thought I would take a break to refresh and share a funny moment of kiddie toilet humour.

Maia was sitting on the toilet the other day (yes it finally looks like the toilet training is a go-er yee bloody ha!) She did her thing, then jumped off, looking in the toilet and with utter delight turned to me and went "look mummy!!!!! it's a swimming nugget!" maybe it's one of those had to be there things, but it is still making me chuckle now - my immature side coming out rofl

The other funny moment was Patrick telling me that honey is actually the logs from bees but we are really lucky that their logs taste so sweet and yummy. He then proceeded to tell me how wonderful the world would be if we could scoop our logs out of the toilet and eat them if they tasted like honey - eeeeewwwwww! His mind cracks me up sometimes.

Sorry if you're eating, I'm in a weird mood today ;)

xx

Some softies for Jack

2008-07-05T00:01:00.004+10:00

My little nephew Jack was born 8 weeks ago now - wow that has flown, I'm sure for Vicky more than me! Sadly he is in the UK so I haven't met him yet - hopefully my little sis will stop being so slack and send me some more pics - especially some in his pretty nappies pleeeeease bro ;)

Of course I sent over lots of presents and he has an enviable stash of fluffy nappies, one of the presents was extra special, some softies made with help from Patrick (and a teeny bit of Maia help too).

It was my first go at making softies which is why they look a little bit dodgy lol. They are from a pattern in the Ottobre magazine - winter 08 I think, and I used some of my plentiful pile of minkee scraps to make them.

Hopefully Jack loves them :)

Megsie Rocks!!!!

2008-07-04T23:19:00.004+10:00

I am very embarrassed how long it has taken me to post pictures of this AMAZING creation from the superbly talented megsie, have been just a little pre-occupied over the last six weeks or so :( but finally here are the pics!

I am so incredibly blessed to have people that want to trade stuff with me, especially when it is something as wonderful as this!

Megsie made a super special Maia pint AND a pint softie!! It came just in time for Maia's 3rd birthday and as you can imagine she is in LOVE with it. 'Fairy Maia' goes everywhere with Maia, and for the first few days she did not want to take her fairy maia dress off, and even went back to wearing bibs so she didn't spill anything on her precious dress, awwwww. Megsie has managed to get a perfect Maia likeness don't you think? Maia always asks for 'fairy maia' hair now instead of pigtails, it is her current favourite hairstyle, she even lets me brush it to get it up!

Thank you so so much Megsie, you are amazing and I am in total awe of your talent and sooooooooo lucky you wanted to trade with me, I'm not much of a hyena, so don't think I would ever have much chance of getting one of these most popular softies in the whole world.

Weeeeeeeeee

2008-05-03T08:38:00.002+10:00

I have stacks to catch up on blog wise, lots of pics and bits to show off, but another frantic week means it will have to wait - hopefully tomorrow. Can't do it today because..... we are going down to Sydney to go to the Foo Fighters tonight!!!! OMG I am SO excited, I nearly feel a bit sad how excited I am. It has been a loooooooong time since we saw any live music, probably since before Patrick was born, so what a brilliant way to break the drought! We've been listened to Dave all morning getting geared up.

It's not only wow at seeing the fooeys, but wow for us - a child free night! With no family close by, it's something that just never happens, so I hope I don't spend the whole night wondering if Patrick and Maia are OK, did they go to sleep or are they still up causing Brad's dad to tear his hair out etc etc. I'm sure they will be fine, but it will feel really weird cos we just haven't been out together for such a long time. Patrick has stayed on his own at poppy's before, but not Maia, so fingers crossed she will go straight to sleep and let her worrying mum have a brill night out.

What cracked me up last night, was that we were discussing how to get there and home and we decided we should probably drive, cos we don't want to be catching a train home and hanging around central with all the eediots after midnight (haha those eediots would have been us 10 years ago). Yes how lovely, Nana Sue and Pop Brad go to see a little concert.

My Super Fabric Haul

2008-04-27T17:17:00.003+10:00

I went to spotlight this morning to get 1/2m of drill to turn some shorts I was making for Patrick into pants and was delighted and amazed to discover some mega mega bargains. All of their clearance fabric was $2 a metre, regardless of the price tag. Of course I went a little crazy, even though I SO don't need anymore fabric, but how could I go past it!!!

My bargain of the day was embroidered taffeta was $25 now $2. I have no idea what I am going to do with the 8 metres I got yet, but mega bargain and in my fav colours of hot pink and turquoise, wooooo :D I'll be a busy busy gal!

Yay the Sun is Back

2008-04-27T17:00:00.005+10:00

Yesterday, for the first time in two weeks, the sun decided to shine, yippppeeeee!!!!! I don't think I have ever been so happy to see the sun, I nearly didn't know what was going on when it was so bright outside. Perfect timing for a wet spell, there was two weeks of constant wet weather from the start of the school holidays to the end and lovely weather for our camping weekend too, blah. Never mind, at least the sun is back now :)

Patrick and Maia had blast camping though, rain was no deterrent to kiddie fun. Rain just meant lots of puddles which meant mud pies galore! Not quite so much fun when we ran out of dry/clean clothes though, so we only stayed two days instead of three.

I was very impressed with myself though, I took the kids early on Friday cos Brad was working and I managed to get the whole campsite, inc tent set up by myself, yeah girl power lol. The pirate campground was a cheesy as to be expected, but the kids had fun and that's the main thing.

Birthday Ruffle Skirt

2008-04-17T20:04:00.003+10:00

I made this pressie for the beautiful birthday girl. She is so pretty and loves long 'princess' skirts, so I played around with the pattern for the ruffle skirt I made for Maia a month or so ago. I changed the length of the layers and added an extra tier. I was very excited that it turned out perfectly and fits well and most importantly, the birthday girl loves it :D

Fun fairy skirts

2008-04-17T19:49:00.003+10:00

One of Patrick's friends had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and she had a fairy/magical dress up party, so I needed to make Patrick and Maia some outfits. I found a great tutorial for making a no sew tutu and it was pretty easy. I was thrilled with how Maia's fairy and Patrick's pixie skirt turned out.

Maia's was just strips of tulle cut about 20-25 inches long, differing lengths, cos I thought 20 inches was too short, but only found that out after I started making it lol. Patrick's was done a little differently, as I didn't want it to look so much like a tutu - he was a pixie ;). I cut the tulle for his into petal shapes and it was much longer, so not as puffy - much more manly - well as manly as a petal skirt can be ;)

My wee entrepreneur

2008-04-15T18:27:00.005+10:00

I've got lots of pics etc to update, but just while I'm waiting for dinner to finish, I thought I would share what Patrick has been up to for the holidays.

He decided he wanted to run his own company selling stuff, since that is what I do. He asked me what I thought he should do and I told him if he wanted to run his own business then he should do something he loves. Well I love making cards he said, so he made his playroom into the 'card factory' and I helped him set up his very own etsy store - have a look, it's SO cute! He is very excited that he is the boss of his very own company hehehe.

http://www.mynameispatrick.etsy.com/

I'm so proud of him, all of the cards have been completely his own - the ideas and pictures, choice of colour of the paper, card and envelope, the only thing I have helped him with was the cutting of the paper and the cardboard so it was nice and even, plus gluing the paper on the front so it is square. Other than that, it's all his creativity :) He has sold two so far, plus a few to us, so it won't be long at all before he has his lovely orange bike!

Busy Busy Busy

2008-04-05T19:50:00.002+11:00

Well it has been a frantic few weeks here, literally blink and holy crap, where did that two weeks disappear to! Brad's work went from nothing to totally full on and we all had to come along for the ride. I'm just starting to feel ever so slightly on top of things again. I'll update properly soon, with some pics of things I've finished, plus hopefully a picture of Miss Maia's first black eye! On the night before she was having some photos done too - perfect timing. Things like this really challenge my years resolution of not being a stress head ;)

Challenge Update

2008-03-24T20:13:00.003+11:00

Last week was a joke of a challenge due to a few things. I broke the golden rule of budget shopping - no menu plan, plus I took the kids with me in the afternoon when they were hungry and I rushed so I could get them out of there, meaning I had to go back the next day because I forgot stuff, which I did when I was hungry, so got a few impulse buys ;) Brad also went to Sydney for the day on Saturday, so needed car snacks, plus lunch to have down there and something to take to the BBQ, plus it was easter and the eggs were bought at the supermarket and as if we could go past hot cross buns. I was going to make some, but with Brad working so many hours last week, we were both tired and opted for the easy option. All up, $170 for the week, so $120 over budget hahaha.

Given this is the last week of the month, I am going to make MUCH more of an effort this week, I really want to crack the $50, but the pantry is already low, so not sure we can make it til Sunday. Off to menu plan now, so hopefully I can make it work!

A few new WIP's

2008-03-24T20:03:00.003+11:00

Well just because I don't have enough on my plate at the moment, I thought I should start another couple of projects. I love knitting, cos it is easy to take with me and spend 5 or 10 mins on here and there, or do it for 1/2 an hour while chilling watching telly before bed - less concentration and dedicated time required than sewing.

I got my 4.5 and 5cm circs last week and I just had to find out how they would go, so started on Elliana's longies. They are SO pretty, I am just loving how the berry fushia colourway is knitting up :D I've gotta pull finger with these though, so teeny elliana doesn't grow out of them before I have finished! I have grafted the crotch today, so should be able to finish the second leg in the next few days and have them sent off by the end of the week - that is the plan anyway ;)

The days have started chilling, so I also thought pulling finger on some winter woolies for Patrick and Maia is a good idea. I've started with this zoomy vest for Patrick - I already had the pattern book from last year as it was recommended for quick knits, then a few weeks ago found the actual zoomy yarn for $1 a ball at Big W, so figured why not. So far it is knitting up soooooo quick - I love it, a few hours worth of knitting and I am 2/3 through the back piece, just the front and the hood to go then sew it up - hopefully I will be finished in a couple of weeks. Patrick is very excited that I am knitting something for him too :)

Easter Fun!

2008-03-24T19:49:00.004+11:00

It was a lovely easter weekend, apart from Brad working for most of it. He did get Saturday of though and took the kids to Sydney with him to see Poppy and go to his friends for a bbq. I worked ALL day and got heaps done, lifting some of the drowing in work feeling which was nice :)

We did a little easter craft - made and coloured in/decorated some paper eggs, but this year for Patrick, it was all about the chocolate! We didn't really talk about easter/choc eggs etc much, so he must have got the fascination from school or something, actually not so much a fascination, more like an obsession lol - every morning for the two weeks prior we were asked how many sleeps until easter egg hunt day.

Patrick had informed us that the Easter Bunny doesn't just leave the eggs in obvious places like on the kitchen bench or the table - they should be hidden and also the easter bunny is very concerned about kiddies squashing the eggs so they shouldn't be left in beds ;) We had a fun time hiding little eggs through the house in semi hard to get places, they even found a few today. The kids were so excited finding them - Patrick way more so than Maia, he was pretty generous and helped her find some when he realised that he had found more than her which is sweet. Luckily we didn't have chocolate overload either, they only had a few small eggs each, then left the rest for later. This is the booty minus one bilby which is in the fridge with no ears ;)

We had a kind of treat for dinner too - pink risotto! The kids LOVED it which was cool - the same old risotto really, but because it was pink it tasted much better of course. I was just struggling with what to put in cos we didn't have many vegies, but saw a half container of beetroot dip in the fridge that needed to be used up and thought why not. I thought it was pretty yummy too and very pretty to look at as well :)

Patrick also wanted to make a special cake for easter, and this one he did all by himself (with a little help measuring) and it was delicious!! Twas a lovely treat for morning tea today!mmmmmmm

Finally Finished Maia's Skirt!!

2008-03-20T20:51:00.003+11:00

Yippee - I am SO glad to have finally finished this, it has taken forever! No wonder though, when I was casting off, I realised that the skirt was squished onto a circ about a 1/4 the size of the circumference. I knew the stitches were squishy, but I didn't realise they were that squishy. I think I will be asking for some knit pics for M Day ;)

Pretty happy with how it came out though, especially considering I made the pattern up as I went along and I had no idea how it was going to come out til I finished. Basically I started the waist as per a normal pair of shorties/longies - 112 stitches for Maia's waist I think it was (she has a 44cm waist), then I knitted for a few rows after I finished the waistband - maybe 8 rows, then started increases at the hips. 1 increase at each hip, plus 1 increase 5 stiches before the marker and 5 stiches after. I did that every 5 rows (6 if I wasn't counting - ooops) til it was approx at her hips, then I continued the increases every 5 rows, but just did the 1 at each hip marker. Continued on til I thought it was long enough and finished off with a picot hem. How's that for the dodgiest ever pattern instructions LMAO.

Doing the stripes looks very pretty, but was an absolute biatch when it came to weaving all those ends in, it took me a week from the time I finished knitting, until they were all done - maybe 4 or 5 hours of weaving - very demotivating when you are already 'finished'. Next time will be in a variated yarn for sure, just knit, knit, knit til it's done.

I haven't washed it or anything yet - that might be blocking - wash and lay flat to dry?? I've gotta get more up on the techy terms ;) so hopefully the hem won't roll up after that. I've still gotta put the elastic in the waistband too, but that is a job for the morning when miss m is awake - I am pretty sure I know what she will be wearing tomorrow :)

My wool dying adventures

2008-03-20T20:07:00.009+11:00

I had a new skill to try and master this week - dying wool. It was a lot of fun, but so far I really suck at it. I went in a swap with the girls on my EB knitting group at ravelry, basically you get given someone's details - their colour preferences etc and dye them up some wool and someone will do the same for you - easy peasy I thought, but I was so wrong.

My dying efforts were a bit of a disaster, I have completely ruined a skein of the knittery merino - I still shudder every time I look at the tangled mess of wool. I managed to save my first effort - I was intending some lovely aqua, lilac and pink, but somehow got deep dark almost black purples, deep red and deep blue - kinda nice, but not what I wanted at all. I saved it by rinsing out most of the dye before I put it in the microwave and had 'set', it's still not that pretty and tbh, I'm not sure I would even use it in it's current state, so I am going to have a go at over dying it at some stage to try and make it look a bit better - fingers crossed!

The deep dark disaster

The Save

The Tangled waste of beautiful wool :(

What I sent off in the end to my swapper turned out reasonably nice though - not what I wanted, there was supposed to be bright pink in there, but it kind of disappeared and the blue is a phantom blue - I actually dyed that bit purple, but because I have no idea what I am doing it turned blue - at least it kind of looks like it is meant to be there lol. It looks waaaay better once it is balled up, so hopefully my swapper will like it. I felt a bit bad though, so put in some BBR from monster knits in the night rainbow colourway to make up for my dodgyness ;)

I was soooo lucky to my stunning swap today in the post - my swapper sent me this gorgeous pink and purple colourway on BWM - I love it!

If you did want to have a go at dying with food colours in the microwave - this is the basic gist of it - easy if you are clever - I'll share the error of my ways so you may have better luck ;)

1. put your wool into skeins if not already (I had balls, so wound them around three chair legs)

2. soak in a 50/50 water/white vinegar solution for an hour or two, overnight if you want (I used malt vinegar for one batch cos I didn't have anything else, still worked but it STUNK)

3. squeeze excess water off (I rolled in a towel)

4. make a little bed for the skeins out of glad wrap - I put a length of glad wrap on the bench and kind of pinched the sides up to ensure no dye escapage, I also tried it laying the glad wrap on the bottom of the microwave dish and laying the wool on top as in the deep dark disaster pic above

5. mix up your dyes - I thought you needed a lot for vibrant colours, but no - this just makes a very dark muddy mess - see above ;). I started out with a few drops in say 10ml water and poured a little on, if I wanted it darker I added some more dye. It is easier to get it darker than lighter - so start out lighter and darken if you want to. I have also been recommended to cut a length of wool to test on, before pouring on your dye. Mop up any excess colour, then move on to your next colour.

6. once you have the wool all pretty colours, wrap it up tightly in glad wrap, then put in the microwave for 3 mins, then rest 3 mins, then 3 mins, rest 3 mins, then 3 mins, then leave overnight to cool down

then rinse, put a little shampoo or wool wash in if you want to get rid of the vinegar smell and bob's your uncle, lurvely wool!

If you have made a mistake and want to overdye it, just repeat the steps above, inc the vinegar soak.

As much as I would love to keep on trying to perfect the art, I already have way more wool than I know what to do with, plus trades up my sleeve with two of the best dyers in Aus, so I think I will just leave it to the experts and expand my crafty horizons other ways :D

Nothing finished yet damn it!

2008-03-15T13:26:00.004+11:00

Brad has been working 12-14 hour days and has worked the last 10 days straight, with another 6 to go, so not much happening on the 'spare time' projects, due to almost zero spare time. It's always a fun juggling act this wahm caper, especially in a busy work month and made all the more complicated by a phantom hubby ;)

Never mind, I will get everything done eventually! I have nearly finished Maia's skirt though - that's why I love knitting, you can take it with you and a quick 5 mins here and there means progress to be made, slowly but surely. I just have the PITA side of all those lovely stripes - masses of ends to be woven in, but a pic is coming soon :)

I failed again on our $50 challenge, I've spent $67 already and it's not even the end of the week. I was just going to get a couple of things, but I hate supermarkets and figured while I was already there I could just shop for the week. That is very dangerous without a menu plan though - I am pretty sure I could have come closer to the $50 had I meal planned and got only what we actually needed. I think I will end up with extra veg, that we will use just for the sake of using it up. $67 is still not bad though, so I'm not too worried about it.

Just had to post this very cute pic of Maia too. She is such a delicate little thing, normally happy, cruisy and content - that is until you tell her something she doesn't want to hear lol. We have been trying to get 'the look' on camera for a few months now, cos it is pretty funny, but she usually starts smiling when I get the camera out. I was already photographing something this morning when she did the look, so I got it before she changed expression - it's classic. This is a mild version after I told her she had to use the potty if she wanted to keep her big girl undies on - she wasn't so keen ;)

$50 Challenge Update

2008-03-10T16:31:00.002+11:00

I'm not sure whether to be excited that we managed the first week of the challenge spending $77 cos that is still a pretty good effort for a week's shopping, or disappointed cos it wasn't $50. Somewhere in between perhaps ;) The extra money spent was for good reason though, we usually buy olive oil in big tins and the seemingly never ending tin was coming to an end and woolies had a super good special - 4 litres for $23. We couldn't go past it, considering that will probably last six months.

I'm not sure how we are going to go for the next few weeks, as we have already noticed a big dent in the freezer and pantry - brad thinks it should be at least the $60 challenge lol. Our menu for the week wasn't too bad, certainly not exciting, but OK. For dinners we had: spinach and ricotta lasange (2 meals), tuna and potato pie with steamed veg (2 meals), home made pizza, big fat salad, fritata. Lunches were a bit harder, cos we used the leftovers for the second dinner instead of lunch, so lots of sandwiches, baked beans, scramble etc patrick made up his own dish one day - cheesy eggy rice. We also had some treats - nectarine crumble with custard (crumble was frozen in the freezer from a few weeks back), chocolate brownies - those were good! and lots of smoothies.

Hopefully this week, we can do it!

I didn't get any objects finished this weekend either as Brad got called into work. I have done the last colour change for Maia's skirt now, so on the home stretch, yay! Few more rounds to go, then figure out how to do a picot edge for the hem and I am done - will be glad to get that one finished!!

I've been tagged

2008-03-07T23:21:00.010+11:00

I've been tagged by Tikki. Very exciting for me as I am new to this whole blog world - I guess someone does read my blog after all LOL

Firstly, here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Righto, 7 random and/or weird things about me:

1. I'm very anal when it comes to some things - like the linen cupboard. Every towel, facewasher, blanket and pillowcase must be in it's correct place or it drives me nuts

2. I'm currently longing for a bubba, hoping our stupidly crazy lives will allow it to happen sometime soon

3. I have a rediculous amount of yarn considering that I have only ever completed 1 scarf, 3 pairs of shorties, 2 newborn soakers and 3 dishcloths in the six months I have been knitting. I always think I will have more spare time than I actually do, and am hopelessly addicted to pretty things and beautiful colourways, I really need to stop buying and start knitting!

4. I am definately a swim person when it comes to sink or swim. I worked as a temp for a few years and often used to take on jobs that I had no idea how to actually do, just so I didn't get stuck with boring reception or straight typing work. Luckily I can pick things up reeeally quickly and was able to pretend like I knew how to do it all along.

5. My 'real' name is actually Susan, but I don't like it at all (no offence to anyone named susan) and as soon as I left school I changed it in all but official documents to Sue

6. I can't have nutella in the house, because otherwise I will eat it all straight out of the jar which is just disgusting - last month I managed to make my way through an entire 750gm jar in just over two weeks, with very little help from anyone else. No wonder my tummy feels a little more squishy than normal!

7. Procrastination is one of my worst traits (along with always being late - probably a result of the procrastination lol). I hate myself for it sometimes, but I just can't help it - like now. I really should be catching up on my outstanding emails, but I am here doing something completely trivial that I should do after I finish work. But hey, I gotta have a break sometimes ;)

Not sure who to tag, being new to blogging and all, but hopefully I got it right and everyone I've tagged hasn't been tagged before. Sooo I'm tagging Mel, Hayley, Tanya, Donna, Kath, Wendy and anyone else who wants to play- have fun :D

My Finish the UFO's Weekend

2008-03-07T15:41:00.011+11:00

I have so many things that are almost finished, I've decided to make that my mission for this weekend. I have to applique Patrick and Maia's names on the playroom curtains - that has been outstanding since Christmas. Patrick's school pillow needs it's rainbow applique and I sooooooo want to finish Maia's knitted skirt - I'm so close and have been doing it since our camping holiday in January and I need those needles for another project. Brad and I also need to get past week 1 of our Italian lessons or we are not going to have any chance of being fluent in Italian by next August LOL.

Also, I have some very belated pressies for friends that need to be sewn up as well as an extra special trade and this week I got a delivery of stunning embroidered minkee cuts from Mel at Wrigglebots, so I am hopefully going to turn these into spectacular nappies.

Our $50 March Challenge

2008-03-06T18:29:00.003+11:00

After getting two monster unexpected bills, plus having to get a new washing machine and Brad loosing heaps of hours at work, I decided to do something very drastic, kind of cos we need to and kind of as bit of a challenge to see if we can actually do it. Each week in March, I will try to do the weekly grocery shopping for just $50. Yep feeding a family of 4 for $50 a week certainly won't be easy, but I do have a few things on my side. I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to food and I tend to stock up when things come on special, so we already have at least 2 weeks worth of soy milk, plus quite a bit of rice/noodles/pasta in the pantry, I just bought 5kgs of spelt last week so we'll be good for bread and we are usually getting 3 eggs a day from the chooks at the moment.

One of the important things for me though, is that I don't want to compromise nutrition just to eat cheaply, so we won't be living on white bread, 2 min noodles and skanky vegies. I guess that makes it a little harder because generally it is cheaper to eat crap food than good food, but I just think we'll have to be a bit more creative ;)

So far in week 1, I have spent $27.50 on a big box of fruit and veg and a carton of milk, so I have $22.50 left, I'll report back in on Sunday and let you know how I go with it :)

Finally A Nappy Made Just for Maia!

2008-03-05T01:49:00.009+11:00

Maia has many many nappies, too many to count actually, but all her IB's are seconds or testers, prototypes etc - since starting my business over two years ago, I have not actually made a nappy specially for her. Since she is almost out of nappies, it was time to seriously pull finger and make her a special nappy. I took her to spotlight and she chose her own fabric. Sadly this was about six months ago - it has taken me that long to get around to doing it :( but at last, today, I finally finished it off, yay! The only time I will probably say - thank goodness she still wears nappies hahaha.

She was thrilled of course and even though she was very proud that she had been in the same pair of undies all day at daycare, she wanted to put her pooh nappy on straight away. And of course, as per the new nappy test, it was promptly christened rofl. I'm just glad she still fits it, since I cut it out months ago lol.

Pay It Forward

2008-03-05T01:30:00.002+11:00

From Rebecca's Blog I'm a bit slow with this one, I keep meaning to blog it and then get distracted and forget ooops. I love this pay it forward, it's such a cool concept :D

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days. Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive and will be lovely! All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers. Easy Peasy.

Nappies for Baby Wombat

2008-03-04T14:48:00.006+11:00

It's always such an honour to have friends who have known me since before the crazy days of IB ask me to make nappies for them. This bubba is particularly special - a very long time coming for his mum and dad. I made a promise to my friend one day not to ask how the TT'ing was going because she had such a huge range of emotions about it all and was getting very sick of people asking about it! I kept my promise and didn't ask her again - I knew one day there would be some good news. About 15 months later, out of the blue I found an incredibly exciting post on NC telling me and everyone that she was pregnant! I jumped up and down, screamed and cried, I was so so thrilled for her. Any second now (she hopes as she is already 41 weeks!), baby wombat will make his appearance into the world and his little bot will be super stylish from the very first nappy :D

These are some of the nappies for BW that I have been making over the past couple of months. I was given total free reign on the print ones - sometimes a little scary for my wee libran brain lol, but this is what I came up with :)

It's a mix of minkee AIO's, print fitteds and boo's. I loved making these so much, I haven't made print nappies for ages and it made me feel a bit more creative about things again which is sooo nice. I love admiring a beautiful nappy lol.

These ones are mainly smalls.

These are mediums.

Far out - I'm a Genuis!

2008-03-01T01:38:00.003+11:00

It must be all them books I red or sumthin, but somehow, this blog is written to a genius standard ROFL!

I mean of course I know I am a genius, just didn't think it came across that way ;)

Unfortunately though, the reality is that I suspect this reading level rating scheme is a little random - the first time I clicked on it from one of the NC blogs I was merely rated at Junior High, but three days later I'm elevated to the grand poo-bah! So what are you?

One last post before bed

2008-02-28T01:08:00.005+11:00

I've had a late but exciting night, well OK that's a small white lie - for most people not that exciting but I am very excited about my achievement of progressing through the world's longest to-do list, as I have just finished putting the wing snaps on a HUGE pile of nappies that have needed their snaps for at least six months *blush*. Everything got so overwhelming at one stage, I figured I could just snap the nappies as people buy them, to make my life easier. It kind of works that way, except for Murphy's Law and it is always the way, that I'll get 5 orders all on one day for nappies that need snaps and I end up stressing out. I'm very glad my no stress moto combined with the flying organisation is helping to relieve the stress :D

I'm also waiting for a phone call from the UK as it's morning/lunch time there, so while I wait I figured I might share yet some more pics rofl - I did warn about the exceptional number of photos already ;)

The other day Patrick and Maia were playing in my fabric stash, making tents or something else exciting. Maia was particularly attached to a certain piece of fabric and she kept coming up to me saying pleeeeeease mummy make me a pwetty skirt. She actually took things into her own hands at one stage, sitting down with her piece of fabric and the pin cushion, trying to make her own skirt. As luck for Maia would have it, the tiered skirt I had sitting in my cut out, needing to be sewn up pile, was actually using that same fabric, so I obliged and made her 'a pwetty'.

I first saw this skirt on Tikki's blog and thought it looked great. It's more of a ruffle skirt than a tiered skirt I guess - not up with the correct lingo, so please excuse me if I don't get it right ;) - although it does have two tiers. Super easy and quick to make and looks fantastic too, The tutorial is really easy to follow. It says that it is for size 5-6, but Maia is more like a 1-2 and it fits her fine - I cut a little off the edges, but no more than a couple of cm each side. I put snaps on the elastic in the waistband and left a little opening so that I can adjust it later if need be.

Maia loves her skirt sooooo much, her new most favourite clothing item. She asked for it to come off the washing line this afternoon so she could wear it again - please excuse the food covered and mis-matching shirt ;) After the bath I put it back in her basket and she pulled it out and asked to wear it to bed! She currently has it on over her longies LOL

And this pic just because Maia wanted to me take a picture of the back of the prwetty skirt while she was upside down.

Oooooh I just realised where I found the pattern for the balls, it is the same blog as the ruffled skirt - ace! http://grandrevivaldesign.typepad.com/ballpattern1000.pdf

My beautiful ballet dancer:)

2008-02-27T20:09:00.005+11:00

Aren't these so cute! They are tiny size ballet shoes, for my lovely little ballet dancer :D Patrick started ballet last week, after we stumbled across a black and white ballet video on you tube of a famous russian ballet dancer and he decided he wanted to be able to dance just like that!

So off we went to see if he would like and and he LOVED it! So much so, that we had to immediately go to the ballet shop to buy him some ballet shoes. This week was his second week and he still had just as much, if not more fun dancing than the first time round. This week, so he blended in with the girls a little better, he wore a pink t-shirt and I made him some cotton knit ballet shorts, as the teacher suggested that boardie length shorts were not the most appropriate thing lol. He is trying to do a curtsy in the picture, because that is what the girls do and he isn't quite so sure that he should do a bow, as that is different to them, so was very happy with me for making his shorts go wide enough to do it lol.

He is the only boy in the class, but that doesn't seem to worry him, the teacher loves having a boy, and she also loves that he loves to dance.

The many faces of Patrick...

2008-02-27T19:53:00.010+11:00

Well my gorgeous son does love the camera - well kind of, he likes to play this game where he does a weird or crazy pose, then runs away as I am clicking, then he rushes back to see if he can get back in time to see himself on the LCD before the pic goes away. Our resulting photo session was pretty funny, lots of blurry pics and heaps where he isn't even in the picture cos he has ducked down or run before I can click, but these are some of the best ones :D

The case of the missing ball....

2008-02-27T09:23:00.010+11:00

I made a couple of pressies for one of Patrick's friends, as it was his birthday this week. Firstly some denim shorts with animals on the pockets. I did want to have monkey's cos he loves monkey's, but the only monkee fabric I could find was pink and I'm not sure all boys share the same love of pink that Patrick does LOL. Very happy with how they turned out, I even got over my fear of topstitching - glad I did cos I will do it all the time now as it really does look soooo good.

I found a pattern for a ball on a blog somewhere too - will find the link if I can remember where. Awesome way to use up scraps and so easy to make. I did two balls, but Patrick and Maia were helping me stuff them, and somehow, one of the balls has managed to find a home with all the missing pens, single socks, puzzle pieces and rechargable batteries. I turned the house upside down and I couldn't find that damn ball, so there was just one for the present in the end.

New Camera Alert - Prepare to be bombarded with photos

2008-02-27T09:08:00.002+11:00

Well last week the old trusty digital camera finally died in the ass. It had been playing up a little for the past couple of months, but I must have finally dropped it one too many times and it cried enough!!!! We did take 3500 pictures on it over three years, so not a bad innings.

It is amazing how cheap cameras are now for what they do though. For just $250, from dinosuars deals.com.au, we got us a 7mp Fuji semi SLR camera with 10x zoom and a lovely big lcd screen on the back. Very happy with it and have been going super snap happy ever since, so prepare to see LOTS of cute kiddy pics over the next couple of weeks lol.

Wooly Delivery :D

2008-02-17T10:42:00.004+11:00

I must say I am pretty blessed that I have extremely talented people that want to trade stuff with me and this week was a super exciting delivery of wool from Elissa at The Yarn Cafe.

This was custom dyed for Maia - enough pink to keep her happy and enough other colours to keep me happy. Elissa has called the colourway Maia Jade - isn't it spectacular! I will be turning this gorgous Blackberry Ridge wool into winter longies for Maia.

Also was some super super pretty pink and lilac merino, which I am going to knit into a soaker for Vanessa's little girl who is due any day now.

Apron for School

2008-02-17T10:32:00.004+11:00

Patrick needed an apron for school, they have one to leave there cos they do cooking most days. He picked the fabric for the pockets and he decided on pink for the apron - of course ;) with green bias binding.

I thought this would be pretty straightforward to do - and it was, but man that bias binding sucks!! There must be an easy way to do it, perhaps a bias binding foot or something? I had to iron all the bits in half, then sew them on, which wasn't hard, but was very time consuming.

Pretty happy with the end result though :)

Cute photo brag :)

2008-02-17T09:52:00.008+11:00

I've taken some pretty cute pics of Maia lately, so just thought I would share :) I wish I knew how to get pics from my mobile phone cos there are heaps on there too, I'll add them in later if I can figure it out.

Flying Progress

2008-02-10T18:58:00.000+11:00

Well I have to say, I am totally amazed at what a profound effect this flying stuff has had on my life in such a short time!!! I have gone from being stressed out of my head, to having a plan each day, getting my boy to school on time every day so far (this is a HUGE achievement for me!) and not living in a filthy pit wishing it was cleaner. All this in just a week - wow!!

I am finding many of the emails completely cheesy, but I've just set a folder up in my emails and all of my flylady emails just go straight there, so I don't get sidetracked reading every one, I just read the odd one here and there. That encouraged me to set up folders for all of my emails, so now it is not so overwhelming when I open my emails up, I know exactly what I need to reply to and I can find emails again easily when I need them later.

I kinda skipped ahead in the babysteps thing and I have a morning routine and an evening routine sorted, plus I have an routine for work as well, and already I am seeing progress on things that have been outstanding for months and months. Today I finished snapping a pile of nappies that has been sitting on my desk for at least six months if not longer! I have been doing 10 mins a day of snapping and after just 9 days, hooray it's done. Also doing filing in the same way, 5 mins a day of work and 5 mins a day of home and that giant pile is slowly fading away. I nearly wanted to take a before and after picture of my desk, 5 mins a day and now I can actually see the desk and don't have to spend ages digging around in the mounds of paper for what I need. Filing stuff is filed, current paperwork is in it's relevant folder in the filing tray and all the crap is gone - wooo hooooo. And because the desk is so much cleaner, I really feel that it is making me feel more organised and wanting to do more and more, the clutter reduction certainly makes me feel calmer. I'm still incredibly behind with everything for work, but because tiny bits are happening every day, I now feel like I can get on top of it all and I don't feel so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start and just wish for it all to go away - haha, if only ;)

Doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen + benches every night before bed has a waaaaay bigger impact than I imagined, it is sooooo nice to wake up and not groan as you first walk into the kitchen and because it is already lovely to start with, I want to keep it that way all day, so I have been cleaning as I go, so it is staying nice. Brad was amazed last week when he was getting home after 9 and finding a practically sparkling kitchen, kiddies all sorted and in bed, bathroom clean and tidy and washing on the line. Normally if he got home that late and I was doing the whole dinner, bath, bed thing by myself, the house would look like a bomb had hit it lol. Best thing is that it doesn't take any more time, I guess I am just using the time more effectively and doing a quick kitchen clean up feels easier than a hideous clean when the sink and benches are piled with crap. I'm doing a daily bathroom swish too - I made a whole heap of microfibre clothes, size of cloth wipe, the each morning I do a 1 min on the sink wipedown etc, then I chuck the cloth in the shower and while I am showering, do a quick once-over, then chuck the cloth in the bath and do a quick once over just before I run the bath for the kiddies, then pop it in the wash. It's working so well, the bathroom always looks clean now and I can take bathroom cleaning off my weekly (ish lol) cleaning schedule. It encouraged a declutter as well, cos it took longer doing the shower with all the old bottles of shampoo etc, plus toys on the floor of the shower, so I got rid of all of those and put up the caddy that had been in the cupboard since we moved in, so I had somewhere to put the shampoo etc. Plus I went through all the toys and culled the dodgy ones and just keep what fits easily in the mesh bag, so that after the bath, the kids now put all their toys in the bag, so I just pull the plug, pick up the bathmat and it looks tidy again - hooray!

I've also been decluttering clothes and more - six bags gone so far and I can see the floor of our bedroom for the first time in months which is pretty embarrassing - usually we just close the door - that's just been a 15 min a day job too, I really am so amazed what a different 15 mins a day can make!!!

Anyway, I better stop raving on about the flylady, I can get a bit carried away with excitement sometimes LOL, plus I need to get finished up on the sewing room declutter - I did take a before and picture of that - I am sure the after ones will be amazing :D

So yes, after initially being very unsure, I reckon flylady rocks and I won't go back - bring on the super organised and destressed life!!! :D

My big schoolboy and his school 'handbag'

2008-02-07T13:59:00.000+11:00

Well my grown up boy went very excitedly off to big school this week. I can't believe how time has flown!!! He has been busting to go and this morning he gave me a hug and semi clung to my leg for about a minute then he was off! He was so confident and ready for it :D Last year I decided that I would make him a schoolbag and asked what he wanted, showing him pics of backpacks. He did not want a backpack AT ALL!!! lol, instead he wanted a pink handbag with a rainbow on it! A big ask indeed!

Eventually I decided to do the Meena's Marsupial Tote in the stitch and bitch book. I made it a bit bigger - about half bigger, so instead of CO 16 stitches, I CO 24 and adjusted the rest accordingly. I knitted the base in pink, then started the colour changes for the body, 10 rows for each colour, but changing one of the strands of wool every 5 rows so the colours would kind of merge into each other. I was fairly happy with the end result, although the yellow wool was actually machine wash so it didn't felt doh! All knitted with cheapy stuff from spotlight :)

This is before felting:

This is after felting (three times through the wash on hot lol):

I'm a flybaby!

2008-02-02T15:48:00.000+11:00

Well after posting last night on NC asking for advice from the flylady gurus, I have decided to officially give it a go. Anything has got to help at this point! Of course I couldn't possibly follow the babysteps as they have given it - all you are supposed to do for the first day is shine your sink, then on the second day, get straight up in the morning and have a shower and get dressed inc shoes (jandals or leather jandals if I am feeling extravagent for me though). Then you start reading two mins a day of the numerous emails they send you etc etc. I just kinda crammed the first week into the first day, but I am pretty sure I can handle it ;)

It was wonderful this morning to get up and find a totally clean kitchen and no crap all over the benches, with dishes to make me shudder, I really did feel better about the day from the beginning. Best thing was that we were all dressed, had brekky, cleaned up, I did some knitting on Patricks bag and we went on a long walk to the park and a play, all before 10am, when we would usually just be getting out of our jimmy's!

Trying to keep Brad on task is a different story though, I have *reminded* him (he calls it nagging) to put the dishes in the dishwasher as soon as they are finished with several times already, plus he has this really bad habit of leaving tins and milk bottles etc by the sink to get washed out before putting in the recycling.

Hopefully I'll get into some good habits and will be able to reduce some stress! I'll update in a week or so how I am going :)

What a week!!!!!!

2008-02-01T19:40:00.000+11:00

This week just wasn't meant to be, it really should be erased from my memory in case I suffer PTSD because of it! It all started on Monday really, when I spent half the day researching and buying a coffee machine. I'd been wanting one forever and the lure of long weekend sales finally made the decision for me. I really couldn't afford the time off work, but I knew that Brad wouldn't be working until Tuesday night, so I figured I could catch up on Tuesday. That was the start of it really. Brad was actually called in to work on Monday night and ended up working until 11am Tuesday, so plans to work on Tuesday went out the window as he went to bed as soon as he got home.

The rest of the day was chaos, shyte car trip to newy with the kids constantly fighting, nightmare shopping mission, then the clock in the kitchen was wrong and I missed the post cut off, so any work I did get done was a waste of time cos I didn't get posted *sigh*. Then more fun fun fun, about 9pm Maia started vomitting, the biggest one I think I have ever seen, poor thing was so upset and then I had to spend half an hour cleaning up - yukko! Soooooooo not much sleep Tuesday night cleaning vomy and looking after sad Maia, plus Brad was only supposed to work til midnight, but he ended up working til 8am, so that blew Wednesday for my work as well. Maia being sick meant I couldn't visit some friends and their new bubbas on Wednesday either :(

Wednesday was shyte as expected, trying to keep kiddies happy and quiet while Brad slept, but to top off the crapness, I flooded the bathroom when I was filling the bath up and not paying enough attention to what I was doing arrrrggghhhhh. I only realised when the water started dripping through the light fitting in the kitchen!!!!! Lucky it was the light over the sink LOL.

Thursday started out well but went to the crapper after my trip to newy was a complete waste of time and my stress levels were hitting the roof. I had to pick some stuff up to finish off some orders that really should have gone Tuesday or Wednesday except for the previous days stress meltdowns, but the two people I needed to pick stuff up from weren't home. I couldn't ring them on the way to check whether they would be there because I left my phone at home and just presumed they would be cos they always are (except for today waaaahhhh) so my whole trip was a complete waste of two and a half hours and I wasn't able to get the orders out and I had to drag the kiddies back to newcastle later in the day to pick the stuff up. Plus Maia slept for some of the way in the car so she didn't want to go to sleep, so Patrick didn't want to cos she was away and they were both still up at 10pm!

Today wasn't looking too bad, until I realised while I was packing Maia's daycare stuff and realised that she didn't have daycare cos I changed the bloody day til Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!! So that was two days of daycare this week that she had missed, neither of which we could afford the time or money for her to miss - although not much choice about the public holiday on Monday ;) Crap, crap and more crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

I REALLY REALLY hope that next week is going to perk up, not sure how much longer the stress free moto is going to hold for at this rate. So right now thinking happy stress free thoughts and wondering how I am going to hold it all together. My super organised plan doesn't work very well when Brad's shifts change at the drop of a hat, so I probably should just presume that I won't have his help at all any time in the next eight weeks and any help I do get is a bonus. I was looking at flylady the other night and wonderfing if that would help, but I can't launch in with babysteps - I don't have a month to get things cranking on the organisation, super mum, super business owner thing, I need it to be NOW! Plus I'm not a good morning person, but I gotta try something or I will crack it for sure *insert hysterical laughter here*.

Right, best get into the nights work as the sounds coming from the kiddies room are starting to fade, maybe I will get lucky and they will actually go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Here's hoping!

Ottobre goodness!

2008-01-29T00:51:00.000+11:00

Oh my! Not just one but two Ottobre magazines landed on my doorstep this week and I can't wait til I have some spare time so I can get sewing!! :D :D So many great things to sew up and heaps for winter too which is fab! Even Patrick was excited, he wanted to start RIGHT NOW!! But what to do first??? Maybe first I need to figure out how to use the patterns LOL. All the patterns go over the top of each other but in different colours so you can see what you are doing (I guess that is the theory anyway), so I got some tracing paper to see if I can make sense of it all. Wish me luck!

Patrick's Bag WIP

2008-01-29T00:48:00.001+11:00

So far not too bad on the pink rainbow handbag for Patrick. I am totally loving knitting with double strands on big needles, it knits up sooooo fast, I'm stoked to get through so much of the rainbow already, I will easily get it finished before Patrick starts school next week. I decided against using the pink the whole way through and instead I am changing colour every five rows, but each colour gets 10 rows, so hopefully when it gets felted, it will all blend nicely into a varigated type rainbow. That's the plan anyway ;)

Back from camping

2008-01-27T16:59:00.000+11:00

Emerald Beach was just lovely, rained pretty much the whole time, but we didn't mind and the kids didn't mind, so it was all good. We love the campground there, so nice and relaxing and just lovely to go to sleep with the sound of the beach. It was mega stressful getting out of here though, I didn't sleep at all the night before we went away, cos I had sooooo many packages to get done up. I would love just one holiday where I didn't have to try and cram a whole weeks work into the two days before we go, just so I can have some time off. Will have to make sure I plan future new product launches a bit better too, not the best plan taking off less than a week after the d'lishes started out with a massive sale LOL.

We had lots of wildlife friends at the camping ground, including a giant monitor lizard, some kangaroos, lots of smaller lizards and cheeky possums trying to eat our food lol. Patrick thought the monitor was amazing, Maia wasn't so sure ;)

I got a bit of knitting done as well, finally got the i-cord done for the Russia PK shorties, put in the elastic for my boardies, although had to leave it safety pinned up cos I forgot to bring some needle and thread, plus did two ballband dishclothes and a heap of Maia's skirt.

It was just so nice to come back feeling like a human and not a stress machine. I've got sooooooooooo much work to catch up on and emails from probably back in December even, my mission is to get caught up on that stuff first, our BAS is disgracefully late, I'm surprised the accountant has not hassled me about it actually. Plus I have some friends who have just had, or about to have babies that need nappies for their stashes, so I need to get on to that too. Even with lots happening, I've got to keep the stress down though - my motto for 2008 is no stress!

Current WIP's

2008-01-06T23:36:00.000+11:00

Wow four posts in a row - can you tell I am procrastinating about getting stuck into the packing ROFL.

Currently on the needles I have a knitted skirt for Maia. I'm just using plain colours (pale pink, eggplant type colour and sage in random thick/thin stripes) as I didn't want to use one of my pretty wools in case I stuffed it as I started this on NYE and I couldn't be bothered looking up a pattern. I could have gone to Ravelry (sp) for the first time, but I was too worried that I would get sidetracked with all the fab stuff and not actually get the skirt started - I got my invite about five weeks ago, but have been too scared to look until I get some currently unfinished projects out of the way - I would end up with about 100 WIP's lol. Anyway, I decided to just use my shorties pattern with an enclosed waistband and continue my increases past the hips and to the bottom of the skirt instead of stopping them at the hips. I'm tossing up whether to put some short rows in or not - I might on the next one if I think I need it. Hopefully it will work OK. It's nice and easy and should knit up pretty quickly.

I also have to do the i-cord to finish off my russia PK soaker and get that off with the other collection of stuff I have here, one package went last week and I hope to get another off this week.

I want to finish my boardies before we go camping and if possible make another pair for Brad - this time with the fabric around the right way, so he doesn't look like he wants to be back in the eighties with shiny shorts ;) I also want to do a shirred top for me, cos I think it will be pretty hot and I don't really have any singlets or anything that aren't daggy as, I've got some great voile so it will be nice and cool.

Tomorrow I will try and finish off the curtains for patrick and maia's shelving. The curtains are all done, but I changed my mind on the applique when I saw it. I was just going to do 'P' and 'M', but there is plenty of space for their whole names and I think it will look better. I went and got some more vliesofix today from spotlight so I can finish it off (plus got some more fabric ssshhhh hehehe).

Maybe a skirt for Maia as well, she's had a growth spurt and although her old skirts and dresses (the size 0 ones lol) still fit her, they are getting a little short, so she often just runs around in a t-shirt/singlet and nappy/undies/nudie bum. Not sure everyone else at the campground will be as happy for her to run around nudie all the time as we are ;)

Phew - that is so much! I'm sure I can get it done though, five more sleeps til total relaxation that's what's driving me, ahhhhhhhh can't wait!!!

What a night!

2008-01-06T23:31:00.000+11:00

8pm tonight my new range launched and I tell you what I was so totally nervous, I had that whole fastheart rate, flushed thing happening. Not sure what I was so nervous about really - maybe that no-one would want to buy them or something, especially after I copped a bit of flack about the manufacture. I expected that though, there does seem to be a stigma about MIC, but at least I know I am doing it in the best way possible.

Luckily, there nothing to be nervous about in the end, they seem to be well recieved and the orders are as I had hoped, now I just have a HUGE packing night ahead of me, might have to get another coffee ;)

Why you should never delete anything from a memory card without checking 100 times that you have it saved elsewhere...

2008-01-06T23:22:00.000+11:00

It's official, I am an eeediot. A few weeks ago I was cleaning up the memory card, because I got sick of all the different folders on there from when we swapped the card into other cameras - I could never remember which folder was the one to look in, so I deleted what I thought were folders we didn't need anymore.

On Friday night I realised that one of those folders I deleted, was in fact a very important folder, it was the folder that had all our pics of London, Nickster and Mark's wedding, all pics of Vicky, Chris and Georgia, all the holiday pics from London, China etc and all pics we had taken of the kids from about March until now :( :(

I just about cried when I realised what I had done :( Such a stupid thing to do for something so important - it's not like you can get pictures like that back. Luckily we had the SLR with us while we were travelling so we have some pics, but I think it would have been 100 or more pics that I deleted.

Luckily the NC gals came to the rescue and Rebecca found a program on the internet that restores things off your memory card and yay, some of them can still be restored!!! A lot of the older ones and the ones from the first part of the trip (the wedding *sniff* and London stuff) are gone. I am relieved to have some of them back though! I wish the new pics I had taken had gone over all of brad's pics of rotton fruit for his uni assignment, that were restored lol.

So I am going to go and buy a couple of new memory cards tomorrow and one will just be for the camera and will not be used for ferrying stuff from the desktop to the laptop etc - just for the camera! I will download all pics regularly and make back-ups - things like this are just too precious to loose!

Chrissy Pressie for meeeee :D

2008-01-06T23:16:00.000+11:00

I've been trying to decide what to spend my Christmas and Birthday money from Mum on and narrowed it down to a knitpicks set, a dying starter kit or an ottobre subscription. I've been looking for a single ottobre magazine for ages, so I could see what it was like, but have had no luck. I decided to check out the website again after someone on EB mentioned it (haven't looked for ages) and I didn't realise that you could actually look up each of the magazines and see what patterns are in each one. They look awesome and heaps of stuff for boys which is great, because I am pretty sure it won't take long til I am sick of the same old shorts pattern ;)

So Ottobre is my decision, I'm very excited - please fly fast to me lil magazine :D
www.ottobredesign.com if you want to have a squiz.

The Black Rainbow Shorties

2008-01-03T21:38:00.000+11:00

Irene from Jolly Jumbuck (http://www.jollyjumbuck.net/) is a genius and I have her to thank for getting me well and truely hooked on knitting! She owed me some stuff from a trade we had done earlier in the year and when we first organised the trade, I was going to get her to knit some woolies, but I decided that perhaps I could trade for some addi's and wool instead and knit something myself.

Well what I got was spectacular, the black rainbow wool was to die for, vibrant rainbow colours, it looked like licorice allsorts. When I started knitting it up, even Brad went wow for real (and not just to make me feel like he is interested in what I am doing lol). I also got some Spring Zing and Ice Cream Princess on Maia - just had to have that one cos of the name - they both still need to find suitable projects.

The black rainbow was crafted into my third pair of shorties and I am happy to say that my knitting was up to the standard this gorgeous wool deserved - no mistakes at all :D Here are some pics - this is over our biggest night nappy - a large lotus, they somehow fit just as well over training pants which is awesome. I wasn't 100% happy with how the frill came out, but I think that is just my perfectionist nature, cos I don't hate it enough to frog it ;)

Thanks Irene!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T21:08:00.000+11:00

A bit late, but that seems to be the way it is with me at the moment ;) Maybe that should be one of my new year's resolutions, no more being late.... hmmm not quite sure how to make that happen hehe.

NYE was pretty quiet for us, Brad had to work, so it was just me and the kiddies. We went into town with Leah and fam to watch the fireworks. Kids loved it, although Maia got a bit scared and was happier sitting in my lap than jumping around like Patrick was.

We came home afterwards and although they told me they weren't tired, this was my two beautiful cherubs by the time we got back, awwwww. Then a spot of knitting whilst having a bacardi breezer watching the fireworks on telly and that was it - very tame!

I have a couple of resolutions for the New Year as 2007 had it's ups and definately had it's downs, but the worst part is that it seemed to fly by so past, I've misssed out on so many things. I've been a very slack friend and not been in touch anywhere near as much as I should have with my friends and family, so I want to make sure that is a priority in 08. I also want to declutter our house and get our budget back on track - there is no way we will be going to Italy next year if we don't start seriously pulling finger and saving some $$. We have to get rid of our crap too, because paying storage fees for crap we barely use is such a waste and really, if something has sat in a box for 5 years, do you really need it ;)

And most importantly, I want work to be more like a job and less like my entire life, there is no point having a fab business if you are going to kill yourself with overworking. I've been feeling so overwhelmed with it all for the past few months, I really want to get past that and be able to have a few nights off, instead of working every single night (unless I fall asleep with the kids because I am too tired). Which brings me to my last resolution - get more sleep, I would prefer to look like I am on the young side of my nearly mid 30's, not the old side ;)

Happy New Year!

A few more things I've made lately

2007-12-30T11:21:00.000+11:00

I had a little of the lime and pink polka fabric left over from the swap dress, so I made a shirred dress for Maia out of it. I added a pink polka ruffle at the bottom. I'll try and get a better photo soon, Maia was actually trying to hide so she could find a spot to wee on the floor while I was trying to get a pic LOL! Also note the thomas the tank engine tee underneath. That is actually Patrick's pyjama top, that she didn't take off for the whole three days he was away cos she missed him too much awwwwww.

And these are the second pair of shorties that I made. A huge improvement on the white and blue ones, a much better fit and much neater knitting. They've been sitting around unused for about 8 weeks though, as they just needed an i-cord, so I finally got organised and did it.

Exciting New Fabric Delivery!

2007-12-30T11:16:00.000+11:00

Vanessa and I had a VERY late night when I was at fingal, choosing a whole heap of fabric from www.lil-cherubs.com. So much to choose from, it was very hard to narrow it down. We ended up with 26 yards between us! Shipping was nice and quick too, even at this time of year, so I will be ordering again for sure :)

Now we just have to try and remember exactly who got what, because we both got some of the same fabrics. I can't wait to get sewing, there are some stunning fabrics :D

A lovely Christmas :)

2007-12-30T10:19:00.001+11:00

Well Christmas Eve was a HUGE night, we took the kids out to look at the Christmas lights, found a great street where one of the Dad's was dressed as Santa. Patrick was very cute, grilling Santa and asking how the sleigh could work with no snow and how he could possibly make it to all the houses in the world lol.

Unfortunately the kids didn't go to bed until after 10, which was the time we started wrapping presents and organising Christmas food, and when I started sewing their Christmas clothes! Needless to say it was a very late night, thank goodness for Brad's dad coming earlier in the day and helping clean up!

Patrick got a t-shirt with an appliqued star in 'his' special polka dot fabric, he was a bit disapointed as he wanted a whole polka dot shirt, but I think that is a bit past my humble sewing capabilities at the moment. I also made some denim shorts with the polka dot fabric pockets and a smaller star applique on the front. I used red jeans stitch for topstitching which looked awesome, it's the first time I have used it for clothing, I love it.

For Maia, she got a dress made out of a pattern I have had for about 2 years - it is nice to finally sew it up. I used a combo of red polka dot and white fabric with strawberries, so it was red for Christmas, but not so Christmassy that she couldn't wear it at other times.
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, except the white fabric was a little too sheer, so you could see the yoke fabric through the front, but it could just be me being extra fussy LOL.

I still have to add the ribbon and ric rac to the ruffle layers too. Maia lurves her pretty dress, she didn't want to take it off.

We also had a fun weekend full of stress before Christmas, Patrick went from being an Angel, surprising me with tidying his room without me even asking, to having some fun with paint!!

It took him a loooooong time to clean all that up and we are still finding splatters of red paint on the cupboards. He wanted to make me a picture of the rain, so covered his hands in the red paint and shook them to get the splatter - very artistic of him ;)

It was a lovely time though, I banned everyone from Computers for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, that was a bit too much for our visitors, I think they lasted until brekky on Boxing Day ;) At least the computer time was much less than usual on Boxing Day. We had our traditional big brekky on Christmas Day with Brad's Dad and Boxing Day ended up being more like our Christmas Day, with stacks of food (so much that Lachlan actually threw up from over eating!), a big cooked brekky, table full of dips, cheese, choccys, fruit etc and a big dinner too. Patrick and Maia had a ball playing with their cousins and it's been a lovely week.

But the quick break is finished and it is back to work now. We got a shipment of 55 boxes of nappies on Thursday, so the garage finally got cleaned out so we had somewhere to put them. Very excited about the launch next Sunday, but LOTS to do before then! And I shouldn't really complain, as we still have camping in January to look forward to.

Getting Ready for Christmas - Arrgghh

2007-12-22T19:23:00.000+11:00

Well my list of what needs to be done prior to Christmas is so long it hurts my head. So instead of actually doing it, I am sitting here updating my blog, no wonder I am so stressed about it LOL. I think it is more a case of so much to do, but no idea where to start, so procrastinating is much easier. As soon as the kiddies go to bed, I will turn the computer off and get stuck in.

I've done the biggest job which is a great start, I had to move all the furniture around in the loungeroom, so we had somewhere to put the Christmas tree without actually sitting on top of it. Looks great actually, the whole room looks like it has much more space. I've done my other massive job of going through all of our digital pics and copies heaps over to memory cards for Mum and Dad's digital photo frames. I'm so glad I got them, I've been watching the pics scroll past and it is just perfect for them since they don't get to see the kids much. They can send me the memory cards back every couple of months and I can update them with a heap of new pics (the cards take about 1000 pics).

Tonight I want to get some of the washing sorted and the rest of the chrissy presents wrapped so I can make sure I have something for everyone, plus I want to get started on Patrick and Maia's Christmas clothes. They both picked their own fabric, so I don't want to be a slacker and have them miss out. I did get Chrissy T's from cotton on kids yesterday for $5 so they will wear them for the next few days and the other stuff for actual Christmas day. Patrick has Santa Rocks! and Maia has HO HO HO in glitter. I am tempted to make Maia a Chrissy nappy, but she has so many nappies it is rediculous, so I will probably resist the urge and just put her in green and red nappies as much as possible.

Anyway, I think the smurfs is just about to finish, so time to get these two off to bed!

Christmas Treats

2007-12-20T02:18:00.000+11:00

It's a late night tonight, I've been busy in the kitchen baking treat for our hampers. Patrick was going to be my helper, but he is away and I am worried that it will get a little too close to Christmas to get everything done otherwise.

I've made shortbread from Lesley's recipie on NC - this is soooooooooo good! Caramel fudge from a recipie I found on the internet, I don't think this will be so crash hot, I kind of burnt it and it still seemed a bit grainy. And yummmmm coconut ice from a taste.com.au recipie. Just waiting for it all to set, so I can cut it up and pop in the noodle boxes ready for the hampers :) Hopefully everyone will like their homemade treats :)

Secret Swap

2007-12-20T01:29:00.000+11:00

Well I very embarrassedly put my late NC secret swap into express post today, I really hope it gets there by the end of the week, my poor swappee must be feeling very sad that she is one of the last to get a swap. Hopefully she will like it and that will overtake the sad feelings of it being late :)

I had so much fun with this, I decided not to do nappies cos that is what I always do and did something different instead. Only prob was that I totally underestimated how long it would take to make these things lol. I made a dress, some shorts and a soaker, plus bought some stitch markers and a row counting bracelet for mum.

The dress:

I was so excited to do this dress, I found the fabric at spotlight and fell in love with it - bright and fun :) I did a test run on shirring with a dress for Maia, so I was set to go. Only prob was determining the size.... I tried to use Patrick as a guide, but because he is so skinny, I measured him then added a bit for luck, perhaps a bit too much, because I think it will be huge - it will certainly last for a long time anyway ;) This dress was kind of jinxed though, everything that could go wrong did from the moment I started lol. My overlocker played up and wouldn't do a rolled hem when I asked it to grrr. I sewed the ruffle on backwards, so had to unpick and do it again, I don't think I had the stitch length long enough for the shirring, so I am worried it will be extra too big and the worst thing of all was a little rotary cutter accident :( I must have dropped the rotary cutter on it at some stage, cos I found two little nicks in the fabric. I was so upset cos I put so much time into the dress. I ended up zig zagging over the holes, then appliqueing a pink spot over the zig zag in an attempt to hide it - hopefully it will work!

I cut it as one piece and did a narrow overlocked hem for the top of the dress, then attached the ruffle which also had a hot pink overlocked hem at the bottom, did the shirring (I did 10 rows, but I reckon I could have gone 2 or 3 more because the dress is so long), then overlocked up the side, catching all the shirring threads - easy peasy!

I just hope that it fits and she likes it - fingers crossed :)

The Shorts:

I decided to make some baggy style denim shorts (lots of room for a cloth bum - hopefully not too much room lol) featuring one of his favourites - Dora. I so thrilled with how these turned out, it was my first try at applique and it was a tiny bit messy, but I think pretty good for a beginner. I didn't know his waist measurement, so just guessed and put a few snaps on the elastic to make it adjustable - hopefully they will fit OK.

The soaker:

For a tiny bubba on the way, I decided to knit a soaker. It's the first time I have knitted a soaker, so I decided to try the PK knitters pattern as that gets raved about. It is awesome, but the first one I knitted looked tiny, so that one will be going to the Russia appeal. I did this one as a medium size, as I was guessing my guage was totally out as my knitting is quite tight. The rise is a bit long for my liking, but at least the ribbing can always be folded down if necessary. It was also my first time doing stripes in the round, a little challenging (and a major mission tying all the ends in!), but I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now I just have to wait til Friday to see if she likes it :)

Lots of creations

2007-12-19T02:12:00.000+11:00

We had a lovely week at Fingal Bay last week, it's so gorgeous there, we love it, only an hour away, but you feel like you are a million miles from anywhere. No distractions and no work, yay! I did take the sewing machine and overlocker with me, but so that I could have a play, I am totally loving creating funky duds at the moment. I also knitted up a storm, finishing off a few projects and starting on a couple of new ones.

What I did:
- 3/4 of boardshorts for me, they just need the elastic and hemming to finish off
- finished the black rainbow shorties, OMG they look amazing, I am so thrilled with how they turned out and they fit Maia absolutely perfectly, so pretty happy with that
- bamboo dishcloth in seed stitch got finished off, mainly because I forgot to bring the normal dishcloths with me lol. I am so in love with how well it worked, only problem is that I left it behind, so it has probably been thrown away now *cry cry cry* Will have to make more ASAP!
- started on the spotty shirred dress and dora shorts for the NC secret swap
- green and blue punk knitters soaker, this was for the secret swap, but ended up a bit smaller than anticipated - I knew I should have done a guage swatch hehe
- started on the orange and purple stripey punk knitters soaker - my new swap soaker
- had fun ordering 26 yards of stunning fabric from the states with Vanessa, we are going to have soooo much fun when that arrives!

Phew! So much for a holiday hey ;) It was very relaxing, there was a playground right outside the door pretty much, so I could knit and sew while the kiddies had a blast, plus Brad and I took turns at doing our relaxing stuff. I do wish I had gone for a few more early nights though as I am struggling a bit this week.

2007-11-26T19:08:00.000+11:00

Cool my first post on my new blog! I couldn't really think of a name, but since this is to show off my creations, it kinda worked. Not that I didn't think I could sew after two years of sewing nappies, but more that I could sew something other than a nappy, cos it's been a long time since I have done that!

Anyway, off to find some pics...

My first shirred dress. After some initial probs with the bobbin (and a very long unpicking session), I got there. I used a combo of the sunny day tutorial, and a couple of other web based tutorials to make it. So easy and so very cute - Maia lurves her pwetty monkey dress.

Brad's Boardies. Poor Brad is desperately low on shorts, with all his showing bad signs of wear and age, so I decided to make him some boardies. Although they were a massive improvement on the *unique* shorts I made him a couple of years ago with a backwards pocket, I did a silly mistake that I don't think I will be doing again LOL. I couldn't figure out which was the right side and which was the wrong side of the fabric, turns out that I got it wrong and he now has very shiny shorts LOL! He reckons he doesn't mind, but I will make him another pair soon that are without the shine ;) Don't ya just lurve his hair in these pics ROFL

My first shorties. These look much better in the pics than they actually are. I had to frog these three times cos I just couldn't read the pattern (or count hehehe). There are a few little mistakes and holes, but not too bad for a first attempt I reckon :) Unfortunately they are a little bit short in the rise at the back, so we get some nappy peekaboo, but they should be good for when Maia finally wants to wear undies out of the house.

Patrick's Shorts:

With so many things being made for Maia, I was so excited when Patrick wanted me to make some clothes for him. I did these two pairs of shorts, he was dead keen to have pink ones, but I managed to convince him that the pink on the fabric on the pockets was pink enough lol. And yes believe it or not, these are just out of the wash - the joys of having a boy ;)