summer frocks

 After pricing summer dresses in the local children's clothes shop, I came home determined to make my own. Sure the one's in the shop were nice, but seriously overpriced for little girls. I have a stash of lovely voile's in the cupboard, so when I saw this gorgeous dress Ansia had made for her daughter, I just had to give it a go. The instructions can be found here on 'From an Igloo'. My girls are so happy with the result. Soft and floaty, feminine and twirly! Grace chose the subtle floral voile which suits her perfectly. She is steering clear of bright colour choices these days. Maeve still loves all things pink, so the checks were her choice. She looks adorable. We had such a lovely afternoon at the beach. The breeze was up, but that didn't stop the squeals of delight as the girls raced up and down the sandy slopes. Jude and I did a little shell collecting. Spring = happy days.

right now

Right now I probably should be in bed... but I'm not. I am working my way through the pile of unfinished objects that crowd my sewing desk. This is a softie I knitted for Jude's 1'st birthday, but never quite got around to piecing together. I am sure the 'knitting bit' was way easier than the 'piecing together bit'. So sure. This is going to take days to complete!
See that bowl of wool on the left? That is part of a fleece I purchased from a garage sale. Straight off the back of the sheep, burs, dirt and all. I hand washed it all in small amounts, spun it on low in the washing machine (in pillow cases), and dried it in the sun. It has come up so beautifully and there is so much of it! Prefect for softies. I have two more fleeces here that need washing as well.
Will be back soon with the finished photo's!

crayons and paper

The girl's conversation went something like this the other day:

Grace- "Me and Maeve never stop drawing, we love it sooo much! We never stop drawing, do we Maeve?"
Maeve- "Well.....we do stop for lunch sometimes"

And that pretty much sums it up at the moment. Two girl's in love with their crayons and paper, endlessly drawing at every possible moment. The house littered with trails of artworks to be found in one room and then the next, and so on...and so forth. Paper everywhere. They love it.

Maeve has taken to copying whatever it is that Grace is drawing and I find it interesting how her attention to detail has come along in the last two months. We went to look at some Chicken's with friends of ours recently, they were hoping to buy some new hens. We were merely dreaming. One day when we are some place bigger and quieter, yes indeed we will have chickens! For now we will just continue to dream and of course draw.

Top: 'Rooster, chick and hen' Grace 6 1/2yrs

Bottom: 'Rooster' Maeve 3 3/4yrs

Left: Grace's butterfly

Right: Maeve's butterfly

They are both big on butterflies at the moment. We have many of these drawn then cut out carefully around the house. We are trying to photograph their creations to keep a record, without having to keep all that paper! I would be interested to know how other parents keep their children's artworks. Do you file them, stick them in scrapbooks, keep only the best, bin it all? Don't forget, if you have the time it's always a nice idea to turn them into an embroidery that can be enjoyed for years to come. Remember this post and this one?

edited to say: I also forgot to mention the art wire for displaying favorite drawings. Clearing it at the beginning of every term is always a good way to keep it fresh and uncluttered.

cot bumper

With the sewing machine set up in its new corner, I have been trying to tackle a few old and forgotten projects that needed finishing. A cot bumper was one of them... probably a totally useless item for a umm, err, now 15 month old (!!). Yikes, time has flown. The poor boy has been sleeping in a port-a-cot since he outgrew the bassinet, because I refused to set up the cot until I had the bumper finished. Oh the relief to pack the port-a-cot away! I feel like he had been camping out in the bedroom. His cot now has a small space in the girls room which is working out quiet well. Next job on the agenda is to paint the room that will be his and set it up. I am thinking a soft gray would be nice. Don't hold your breath friends!

green

I am coming to realise how much I love this little green space of mine. Each plant is so perfect, so beautiful and uniquely created. From the Aloe to the freshly potted Tomato's, the Yucca to the pesky (yet pretty) Clover, the Lillypilli's and the butter containers full of Jacaranda seedlings (thanks Pa!). The Mother-in-law's tongue is a favorite of mine, so tall, strong and beautifully patterned. It grows perfectly with the Aloe Vera in an undercover area we have out the back. Most of our plants are in pots as we have a tiny yard. I have Nasturtiums, Strawberry plants, Lettuce's, Sunflower's and mixed wildflowers in the seedling trays. There are a few barely surviving herbs, so we might replace those next. What grows in your garden?

quilt love

I feel a quilt (or two) coming on. Every time I pick up this book, I have the urge to sew quilts just like this for my girls. The colours, the triangles and size are just perfect and grab me every time. Hmm, I have piles of vintage sheets which would be ideal for this project. And how cute is Jenny in her green velour romper! I might need to make some of those too. Feeling so inspired!

laundry powder

 

A few weeks back Maeve and I had a go at making our own Laundry Powder after being inspired by Amanda's post here. Let me just say it works a treat! I really can't stand the smell of commercial wash powders (or many man-made perfumed scents for that matter...they give me nausea and headaches), so this stuff has been a much welcomed relief for my sensitive nose/head.
We were a bit lazy and grated the soap in the food processor, which made the whole process super speedy. Maeve was a great little helper!

For those of you that live in Australia, it seems that some of the ingredients can be hard to come by so I thought I would share where I got mine:

• The Borax was a tricky fella to track down. I couldn't find it anywhere, until I did a home shop through Woolworths online and they had it! None of my local Woolworths stocked it, but online did...go figure? I have also heard that some Bunnings stock Borax.

• The Dr Bronners castile soap can be found at most good health or vitamin shops. If not, ask and they will probably order it in for you.

• Washing soda. Well, this one is a rather long story. At first I couldn't find it in my local supermarket, but I did find 'soda crystals', which I had read about on a lot of forums and people said its the same thing as washing soda. Don't be fooled folks, its not! The soda crystals have water added and the washing soda is a dry powdery salt. Anyway, because the soda crystals were all I could at the time, I got them, and thought maybe I could pop them on a tray in the oven to dry them out and hence remove the water content. Turned out the soda crystals had a much higher water content than I thought, and pretty soon I had a deep tray of liquid boiling in the oven! This went on for ages, and in the end I stuck the tray on the hotplate to boil quicker. It eventually all dried out (I am talking hours later) and I was left scraping the powdered stuff out of the tray. The tray was completely trashed, and had to be binned. See the jar in the photo below? That how much washing soda powder I got from a full bag of soda crystals. Pathetic! And if that experiment wasn't torture enough, the next day I came across a bag of washing soda in a small grocery shop close by for half the price. Arrgghh... I couldn't believe it!! I will n-e-v-e-r be making my own again!
  Now, I am sure you could use the soda crystals if that's all you can come by. But if the recipe calls for 1 cup of washing soda, you may want to substitute 3-4 cups of soda crystals.

On another note, this Laundry Powder seems to work great in both top loader and front loader machines. I have a front loader and have no issues yet. It is not too sudsy at all.

{happy washing!}

taste testing

This cheeky boy of mine got into the fruit and veg delivery while I had my back turned and took a bite out of each strawberry, leaving only two untouched! I must say he enjoyed every minute of it, making sure each berry was just as delicious as the one before. We did have a good laugh, after my initial panic realising he eaten through the plastic wrap and all to get to his tucker. Since no one else was keen to eat what remained, I stewed them up with some apples and they were delicious on top of our yogurt.
While we are talking food, I have to show you the yummy lemon tart I made Luke for Fathers day. It was so so good! I even made my own pastry which wasn't half as bad as I imagined, and boy was it melt in your mouth material! We will be making this one again.

keeping warm

Hello! Just popping in to say hi.
Is it true that Winter is almost over? I can hardly believe how quickly the days are racing by.
Sewing has been sadly absent around these parts, but the good news is I have relocated the sewing machine to a new area of the house. I don't have as much room as before, but I am now right near the living and office area which is perfect!
I do feel like I am cheating a bit on this post as the knit above is one I actually completed last Winter. Those of you who have been reading along for a while may remember when I started. My knitting has progressed a lot since then which is encouraging to see! There are now a few different projects in the knitting bag that I am working on...really must make the effort to finish them off.
This jumper (or 'pull-over' for you Northern Hemisphere folks) was super easy to knit, and came from a free pattern online which I can no longer find. Its basically knitted in four big 'L' shapes that you piece together with a seam running down the top of each sleeve, one down the front of the jumper and one down the back.
I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it outside the house as its pretty frumpy, but it has been the perfect jumper for around the house: so floppy, toasty warm and comfy. I do tend to put comfort ahead of style these days, and this jumper is a winner!