It's quiet at my house today.

Jess(picklesticks) and her littles (5, 3 and 1) left this morning for the long drive back home to Adelaide. (About 770km) I can't imagine such a long drive with three little ones on my own, but she says it is getting easier as they get older. So my house is quiet. Very quiet. Sometimes when they are here I can't wait for the house to be quiet. For the 6am crying to be a thing of the past. (I know I was the mother of eight little children previously in my life, but can I just state for the record that they were all quiet children. Hard to believe, but they were.) And then they leave and it's so very quiet. I do have some stickers and Uno cards to remind me that they were here.

Colour Catcher!

After dropping Lily16 to school this morning I popped into Woolworths and picked up some colour catchers. I have some new quilts to wash this morning and I need some "insurance" so that the colours don't run! I have never tried colour catchers before, just read about their amazing properties. I heard an ad for them on the radio a couple of months ago stating that they were now available in Australian supermarkets. I checked my local Coles, but they didn't have them. Today I checked Woolies and there they were. I've never experienced such excitement in the cleaning products aisle I think. Off to put a load of washing in!

Finished Pouches

I finished off some pouches today. There was lots of making happening and I couldn't resist joining in. Jess is doing a market at the end of July and has been busy designing and making soft toys today. Such creativity is contagious I think. So I dusted off the sewing machine and sewed these up. I love blue and green more than I can say!

Making this week

This week has included lots of looking at these faces. These girls are soooo helpful when you're baking. And happy! There has been lots of laughing.

There has also been lots of making with yarn. My girls got these butterfly looms for Christmas at some point (no idea which Christmas) and they decided to make rugs this week. No rugs have eventuated yet, but there are lots of squares! They have also inspired Maxim19 to make a loom and begin to weave. I love the way his mind works. He's not bothered that someone has previously invented looms, he just thinks about how he would do it and makes one. His first piece of weaving is awesome and he intends to produce a rug too I think.

And I have spent some time with paper, scissors, and glue making cards from Jess' bunting offcuts. (You can see her bunting on our A Making Life blog.)

This weekend I plan to sew. Not sure what yet, but I'm sure I'll find something. And maybe I'll baste some quilts as well. I have quite a pile of quilt tops waiting and Lily16 has a quilt top ready to baste too. It's her first big quilt and she's quite nervous about the next step. I remember being just the same when I started! Have a great weekend!

I made a dress, something interesting, and it's July.

 Way back in June sometime I posted that I had a formal dress to make for my year 12 Lily. This is her last year of school and the formal has become somewhat of a tradition in Australia. This is the pattern she chose. I think one of her sisters chose the pattern originally, but we have never sewn it up before. It was in my pattern collection which we routinely browse before hitting the shops.

And this is how it translated once Lily had chosen her fabric. It's fairly simple in front with ruffle sleeves and glorious ruffles in the back. The original dress had a low back,  but we're not into that so I had to make a pattern modification before I even began to fit it. Lily is not very tall and is quite shortwaisted. (Short from her shoulder through to her waist) It makes buying ready made dresses really hard. The waist and bustline are always in the wrong place for her. That's why sewing clothes for her is essential! So, three calico bodices later I finally had the Lily fit and could cut out her red fabric. Once that was done it was plain sailing.

Lily16 dressed for her formal

Even though I allowed myself plenty of time to fit, cut out and sew this dress I allowed procrastination to take over and I was sewing it right up until half an hour before Lily left. I'm not sure why that is always my modus operandi, but it always is. (This is obviously a character flaw of mine. Going to have to sort it out one day!) Lily was not bothered at all and she is really an anxious person generally. Her friends at school were anxious for her though. On Friday morning (the day of the formal) they rushed to greet her and asked the question, "Has your Mum finished your dress yet?" She assured them (and me) that she wasn't worried because although I do everything at the last minute I had never failed to deliver for one of my kids. Sophie27 took pity on me on Friday afternoon and offered to make the cummerbund for the dress. (I had spent two hours convincing myself that the dress would look awesome without it, but even I wasn't believing it.) She did an amazing job with it and I loved the fact that my Lily had a collaborative "homemade" formal. Whilst I was finishing up her dress Lily made the earrings she wore. (We had bought the beads when we bought the fabric.)

She made the earrings

And here she is with some of her friends, those her Dad was chauffeur for. The girls all got ready at our place so the fun began even before the formal began.

The gang right before walking out the door

Oh. And did you know it's July? This year really is rushing away from me. At the moment we have our daughter Jess visiting us with her three kids. It's such fun having grandchildren to wake up to in the morning! Jess also has a blog (picklesticks) and we have hatched a plan this trip. I have been wanting to do something different with my blog and she wants to do something different with hers, so we have decided to join forces and start a new blog. It will have tutorials, free patterns and printables, product reviews, recipes, give aways and lots of making and creating. We will still have our own blogs, because we love our blogs! We will be adding posts and content to the new blog during July ready for a give away at the beginning of August. You can pop over there to have a look if you like. If you want to keep up with what we do make sure to "follow" the blog. See you over at A Making Life.