a parcel in the post

You can imagine our excitement when this arrived on the doorstep...


Its our creative pack from the competition over at BloesemKids, thankyou Irene and Arrouna! The owl bag from bookhou is just beautiful, and the art supplies are going to get a good work out...actually Grace put them to use straight away to produce these beautiful masterpieces.



Let me tell you about this one first. This is a picture of Grace walking her 'dream' dog. She is drawn inside the world. Its a lovely sunny day...but then it starts to rain (dot dot dot). Later she tells me that the rain drops have actually changed from rain to flowers on the grass. What a beautiful scene!


This one is looking a little more Gothic. Its a picture of me (looking very tired and worn out...none the less, still smiling) and Maeve. I am the one in the middle wearing a blue dress. I am taking the 'dream' dog for a walk and in my other hand I am carrying a worm that I found in the garden. We are also drawn inside the world, where it is raining red. Over to the left is our black circle house with three windows. Superb!

lemons

We picked the first lemons off our tiny little tree yesterday, and boy didn't they smell good! Six big, fat lemons in total. We sterilised our jars and then salted up the lemons to preserve them.


If you had seen the size of my tree, you would have been amazed that it produced these big lemons! I think the tree only has three little branches in total and its growing in a pot- very impressive!


Mmmm...they do smell good, don't they Maeve. She couldn't get enough of the fresh lemony scent.


And here they are all bottled up. They need about 3months in the jars to mature, and then we are going to really enjoy them in some spring salads!


Part of the process involved rolling the whole lemons on the bench to soften them before putting them in the jars. The amount of oil they released during the rolling was incredible...I ended up rubbing it into my skin, and have I told you how good it smelt! This is definitely something I will be doing more of as the lemons keep coming.

butterflies

Here's another shirt I whipped up this morning. We had a 5yr birthday party to go to, so this was the present for the birthday girl...I am hoping it fits her. I made the length to fit, and took the width in a few sizes because I have found this is a wide pattern, and she is a very dainty girl. I was in such a hurry to get it done that I didn't even look at the pattern once. To my surprise it turned out fine. Maybe I should try that more often.
Pattern is Ottobre 1/2008, "puffy" blouse.

vintage surprise

Well well...look what lovely surprises came my way yesterday all the way from Claire in Tasmania. Thankyou so much Claire, I am in vintage heaven! This is my 'vintage surprise' for the coat I made.

Lots of lovely purple fabrics that will go perfectly in some quilts I am planning to make for my girls.

And check out the reds in this picture...I have plans for these!

Amazing doilies, lace buttons, ric ric and binding. Isn't the green crocheted doily with pansy's on it a winner.

And some great patterns to get me sewing.

I am feeling completely spoilt, and am still wondering how you managed to fit so much stuff in that package!

floral blouse

I am totally into sewing for my girls at the moment, so you will have to bear with me while I churn out the girly stuff. Here is a very pretty little blouse for Grace, looking rather old world. I did have it finished a few days ago, but somehow miscalculated with the buttons. We had to do a runner down to our local little sewing shop (that is surprising stuffed with every sewing thing imaginable) to get just one more button. The guy that runs the shop often cuts a silky piece of ribbon for each of the girls, and chats to them while I shop, so they love going there. We got our one button, and he was too much of a gentleman to let me pay. So refreshing to see these days.
The pattern for the blouse is another Ottobre 6/2007 "Amanda" blouse. One thing I love about following patterns is that they teach me how to sew as I go. This was the first shirt that I have ever put a proper cuff on with buttons, so that was fun. I am enjoying doing more challenging patterns, just for the learning factor- very satisfying indeed!

good times

I have been treated to a few nice surprises lately.
Firstly, I entered my vintage coat in a competition over at Crafty Mamas and it won! I haven't entered any competitions in years, so this was such a lovely surprise for me. Thankyou for all the kind comments you left on my blog and thankyou to Claire over at 'a little spunkiness' for donating the prize of a vintage surprise pack! I am really excited to see what's inside.


Secondly, Tracy the 'Mad Quilter' sent me a blogging award for being one of her favorite blogging people! Thankyou Tracy, this really made my day.


And thirdly, Grace and I entered another competition over at the amazing BloesemKids with the shadowbox we made, and we won that too!! We get a lovely craft package put together by Arounna from Bookhou. Arounna's weekly craft projects for kids are just so clever! Thanks so much Irene and Arounna for all your inspiration.

beautiful brides

We were blessed recently to have a very special wedding in our family. Here is my handsome brother and his beautiful bride!



Speaking of beautiful brides, here is one that keeps appearing around our house. Isn't she lovely.



She comes complete with her own wedding ring (button on elastic), and yes she already knows what finger it goes on. She has also developed a new phrase 'a big wedding kiss and a big wedding cuddle'. So if she is talking to someone on the phone she might say 'Nanna, send my love to Pa and give him a big wedding kiss and a big wedding cuddle'. Too funny!



These are the silk dresses I made the girls to wear to the wedding. The pattern is from Ottobre 1/2008 "rose dress" for the pink dress. They didn't have a smaller size, so I just winged it for the blue dress and it turned out ok. I also made them a little purse/pouch to match with goodies inside to keep them entertained during the ceremony, from Ottobre 1/2007.

little feet

One other thing I really like to sew for is little feet. I brought a bag of scrap leather off eBay years ago with shoes in mind. It took me ages to figure out how to sew the leather. I had the leather needle in, but the leather wouldn't feed through properly and kept sticking. Anyway, someone recently suggested that I use my walking foot and now it works fine- happy days!
The red pair have been worn to shreds. I recently had to re-sew the stitching at the front of them. They were originally Grace's, but these days they belong to Maeve. I made the blue shoes recently for Maeve to wear to a family wedding. They matched her pale blue silk dress perfectly. And the ugg boots are some I am currently working on for Grace, constructed out of an old pair of Luke's. The fleece is proving a right pain to sew and I am beginning to wonder if I should just finish them off by hand with a blanket stitch. Any ideas would be most welcome!

holiday snaps

last of the leaves

veggie patch

the church
the aviators

apparently there is much fun to be
had with a foam plane...or so I am told.

the grandparents

the birthday boy

We stopped off at my brother and sisters house on the way home for a quick birthday dinner. He had had a rather unfortunate birthday, with the loss of his dog and his car stolen while he was in the vets. It was so special to spend time together as a family though, and my sister made the most awesome cake!

shadow box

Grace and I have been working on this, little by little over the last few weeks. Sometimes it is really hard to do craft with Maeve around...she tends to be rather destructive. So today we finally finished it while our littlest napped. Its a picture of our family down at the beach, enjoying a walk on the sand. We got the idea from Arounna's craft projects over at BloesemKids. They have some really awesome stuff to make with children!

long tee's

These have been fun to sew. I think I am finally getting the hang of stretch, although I did break two twin needles in the process...too lazy to pull out the pins while sewing. The first two are the same pattern Ottobre 4/2007, striped T-shirt. If this fabric looks familiar, thats because it is. I am slowly trying to chew through my mounds of fabric. You will probably be seeing more of it soon. The blue deer on the red and white striped shirt is one of my favorite colour combinations. A little deer for my little dear. And the white shirt is from Ottobre 1/2008, "puffy" blouse. Its on the big side, which I like. My kids seem to be growing like weeds at the moment.

holiday fun

We are having a great time at my parents house. Its a good thing that winter hasn't fully set in as Maeve has been enjoying a little sprinkler fun. She was fully soaked through at the end of it and the snot was running free.



Then we did the op shop over and came home with some country goodness! How fun is the little blue and red toggle coat, and the coffee mugs are really something special.

welcome winter

Winter is here. I must say I am not exactly leaping for joy, but I am looking forward to the hearty soups and stews. Not so excited about the possible repeat of the $500+ gas bill we received last winter. If you are thinking of a fake log fireplace run on gas- don't do it!



The last few nights I have been madly tracing patterns and cutting fabrics in preparation for our weekend away. We are off to the country to stay with my folks. Its my favorite holiday getaway complete with sewing room and baby sitters, ah the luxury! Hopefully I will have more exciting photos to show next week.



And here's what happens when my husband looks after the kids...much fun had by all!