Sewing room

Last November we moved house. This week I managed to do some quilting, the first for six months. I don't think I want to move house ever again. It took me so long to get organised. I'm not sure why. Ok. I say "organised" loosely. I'm not really organised completely yet, but I'm now organised enough to sew. We have just one living room in this house (the last house had four) and I have had the furniture arranged every way possible! Look at my photos for the latest!

Oh. And you can see the quilt I am working on in the first shot. I began quilting it last year in Melbourne, and it's nearly finished now. Here it is.

So I'm sewing again. And hopefully finishing some things too!

It's getting bigger!

When we first moved back to South Australia in November last year (seems just like the other day, but it's months ago now.) I didn't have any sewing or handwork unpacked. My crochet I was working on had to be left behind in Melbourne and packed a month or so later by my Bradley. Still haven't found it yet. (The last boxes to be packed were not labelled and were all full of random items.) I knew before we moved that I had too much stuff, but I know it much more now! We lived in a huge house in Melbourne and the house here is tiny! Anyway, back in November I had nothing to work on, so my first day here I popped to the new local Spotlight (it's tiny and has so little choice, my last local was ginormous) and bought some yarn and a crochet hook and began crocheting a rug. It's getting bigger, but isn't a good shape yet to finish it off. I recently bought second balls of all the yarn (had to go to two Spotlights to find them!) so that I can finish it. It's big enough now to keep my lap warm as I crochet. It's autumn here and becoming cooler so it's more enjoyable to crochet now. Can't wait to finish this rug! 

Still here making things!

Have you seen "Frozen"? We haven't seen it yet. We tend to wait until movies come to DVD to see them. It costs so much to go to the movies, and we choose to spend our money on other things. Like fabric! Nevertheless, Lily17 trawled the net to find out what "Frozen" characters looked like. Apparently this is Anna. Lily17 was Anna when she went to a "Frozen" dance on Friday night. She made the costume herself.

My sewing area is getting more set up and I even did the appliqué on Lily17's vest above. I am crocheting and working on a hand appliqué I started at a class at Hettie's Patch. The class was with the Quilted Crow girls from Tassie and I couldn't resist attending because I met the Crow girls in Tassie last April and loved their wool appliqué. 

That's my wool appliqué hanging on my new pinboards set up in my sewing room come living room. So much has happened since I posted here last. Lots of birthdays. (I turned 50! How weird is that?) And other happenings. I hope to post again soon. 

Stitching

I bought a magazine and it had an article in it about kantha. It is a traditional Indian method of reusing worn fabrics. A way to make them good again. They would take two worn fabrics and stitch them together with decorative running stitches to make a new, stronger fabric which they could use. Of course I didn't find worn fabric, I got some perfectly good fabric out from my stash! Then I started stitching. It was so much fun! I am planning to do this some more. As soon as I get my sewing space better set up. Want to know what I did with my pinboards? Check out this post at A Making Life!

making and unpacking...

Christmas? Nah, it's not on my horizon at the moment. We are making and unpacking. I seriously can't contemplate getting ready for Christmas until my sewing room is unpacked. I know I don't have long till Christmas, but my mantra always is "It's not Christmas Eve yet is it? Well what are you worried about?" Perhaps there will be no gingerbread men or houses this year, but that will just make them all the more exciting next year, right? That's what I'm going with. I hope you are having a lovely time preparing for Christmas and I'll just get on with this unpacking.

Sewing this week. For a market next week.

 See, there has been sewing happening at my place this week. Proof. Evidence. Photographic evidence even.

But it's all Picklesticks' (Jessica) sewing. Not mine. Want an animal mask for the small people in your life? If you're in Adelaide come to the Jazzy Christmas Market at Unley town hall Tuesday from 4pm to 9pm and buy one, or like Picklesticks on Facebook and check them out there!

There is also this sewing going on. Lily16 is sewing a red and white Christmas dress. The blue and white print is a dress she made a few months ago. She loves it so much she is making a Christmas dress just like it.

Oh. And this is my contribution to making this week. Pop stick Christmas trees. They are supposed to be painted. Any minute now...

The sky.

 I'm not sure whether there is more sky here or whether I just notice the sky a whole lot more because there are so few buildings in front of it. Every day I am busy noticing the sky. And maybe during the summer it will look similar every day, but it sure looks different all the time at the moment.

full moon. colourful sky

One evening I was out hanging-out/bringing-in the washing and felt I should grab my camera and take some shots. All of these shots are views from my clothesline. I'm not a huge fan of doing the washing generally speaking, but I'm becoming a fan here.

Then Tuesday this week a storm cloud was rolling in. We are living in a rain shadow so we don't get as much rain as other areas around here. I'm not sure what I thought that meant, but we have had lots of days with rain since I moved here. The contrast in the sky, so blue on one side and so dark on the other side was astonishing. Perhaps this photo doesn't show it so well. We have had rainbows and all sorts this week. I'm pretty sure that my craft blog is not really the place for these photos, so I'm thinking of making a photo blog. I like the idea of taking a photo every day and recording this place, this life I'm living. 

There is making going on here at the moment though, so I'll be back tomorrow with more crafty photos!

I'm so tired… (it's December, and other impossibilities)

this quilt again. still working on it. no idea where it is right now. in a box?

I'm off for a nap in a minute (it's ok, I'm a nanna - well, a "Ma" - and I am officially allowed to do nanna naps) but I just thought I would quickly blog about the impossibility of today being December the first. I often think about blogging, but then something else takes my attention and the day slips away. So, here's the blogpost right now. Photo and all!

Today is Joseph's birthday. He is my third child and it was a hot day the day he was born. Today is overcast and showery, a real contrast, just like my boy. He was 10 pounds and 10 ounces. That was very different from child one and two. He was a boy. Different from the girls. And he was born with blonde hair which made him look very different from his dark haired sisters. He was quite a shock to the system, but a wonderful shock. Now he is a grown up, with a wife, a mortgage and a dog. Another impossibility. (Can I really be that old?)

Today's theme seems to be impossibilities. Here's another. It seems impossible to me that my sewing room will ever be organised and operational. The only cheerful bit about that statement is that today is full of impossibilities so I quite expect it to happen at some point. Off to nap!

A house in the country...

 Whew! This past month or so has been so busy for us. We moved. To Adelaide. All that packing and cleaning and just getting stuff from here to there has been exhausting! We moved in dribs and drabs with four of us moving first. Then another two. And the last one (my Bradley) is finishing up in Melbourne at the moment.

These are the views from my clothesline. It is so peaceful here. I think I like living "in the middle of nowhere" as my grandson says.

And the kids have played and played and played. Now I just have to alter my "pop-to-the-shop" attitude and I'll be right. (We're seriously not that far from the shops, but the trips add up!)

The sewing room isn't set up yet and I still have boxes everywhere, but hopefully that will all change this week. And maybe I will get to set foot inside a quilt shop near our new home too!

I tried to write this post last week...

... but the internet conspired against me and it couldn't be done. I'm not sure if it was THE internet, my internet, my modem, my computer or just blogger itself, but it's working now so all's right with the world.

This is what I have been doing. Yes, back to the eight year old me, I'm making Barbie dresses. This one works, so I'm going to make some more for the Spooky Oooky market I mentioned last post. Possibly. I'll have to see how time goes. We are moving back to Adelaide so there are things to be sorted, boxes to be packed, garage sales to be had, that sort of thing. We have a plan in place, now we just need somewhere to live. (And that's never easy!) So if you want to rent a house to a crafty family send me an email! I am off to Adelaide some time next week to look at houses (again) so cross your fingers for me.

And now it's October...

This year is really zipping by. Last week we (my Bradley and daughters Sophie and Molly and I) went to Costco. It's a fun place to go, especially if you like shopping. First up past the doors was the first of their Christmas range. We oooed and ahhhed over that and then halfway through the shop my Bradley stopped dead and observed, "Of course, it's almost Christmas." It's hard to believe. It was my most eventful trip to Costco ever. Normally we just hop on the fast road and zip to Costco in 30 or 40 minutes. Coming from Adelaide (where there are no fast roads) we are completely in love with fast roads. Even if we have to pay a toll to use them. So I thought this trip would be the same. Except our requisite fast road was a car park because of an earlier accident. It took us just over two hours to get there. It was my first such experience with the fast roads, which isn't too bad considering that we have lived here for almost three years now.

I have been sewing, although nothing too exciting. This is some Halloween bunting that I put together from a panel that I got from Spotlight. I got a few panels which I am in the process of completing. Some will be to decorate my daughter's stall at the Spooky Ooky Halloween Market and some will be available for sale at the market. She is busy making Deddy Bears and Ghoulish Girls, as well as all her cute softies, for sale at the market. So if you are in Adelaide and want some softies (or patterns for softies) you should pop along. Some of my other girls are busy making ghoulish jewellery for the market too. I am thinking that I might just be in Adelaide for the market, but I'm not sure yet. Oh well, back to the sewing.

September! (I'm slow, but I get there in the end)

I can't believe it's a month since I last posted here. I have been busy and preoccupied I think. I am still working on this quilt. I'm liking it more and more!

I am getting closer to having it finished! I made two trips to Adelaide in August which tends to keep me busy! It's a more than 1,500km round trip which takes forever if you drive it! One of the trips was to see child number four graduate from Uni. Again. This makes it three times now. She has a bachelors degree, an honours degree, and now a masters degree. Five and a half years of study and now she is a fully fledged teacher. She hasn't scored a job yet, but is working as a relief teacher which is keeping her pretty busy. And paid. After being a student for so long she loves the paid bit of working.

My Bradley and I with Rose the graduate

I'm not too keen on this photo as it has me looking like the side of a house, despite the fact that I have lost 25kg this year. I guess it's good to have a reality check now and again though and I definitely need to lose a lot more! I'm not "dieting" at the moment. I just needed a little break. I'll get back to it any minute now.

And speaking of "breaks" look what I did to my stockpot lid a couple of weeks ago! We were all quite sad about it when it happened. Even my 19 year old son. He spoke fondly about his memories of this pot as did his siblings! That's the moment I decided that we all need to get out more! Owning a saucepan for 16 years doesn't make it part of the family! So I am going through all of our stuff at the moment. we have waaaay too many things! Today is going to be a sewing day though. I'm off to sew some more!

Circle Quilt

This is what I'm working on today. I bought some backing yesterday afternoon. Basting is next and then a little quilting and some appliqué. 

Blog Reading

I haven't been doing much blog reading of late. My head has been busy. In fact I have been busy! I did take some time out to spend time at our local shopping centre with my Bradley one evening. Isn't it pretty? The sky at night, through a glass dome.

I did see this post this week and thought you might like to see it too. It's about being a mum to a special needs kid. So in case you've ever wondered what that might be like, this post explains it beautifully. Oh. And it's written by my kid. She is an awesome mum. And her kid is awesome too.

Playing with Anna Maria Horner...

No, she didn't come over to my house with her newborn to play with me in my sewing room. I have spent the past couple of days playing with her fabric range Innocent Crush. It's old. I bought it when I was still living in Adelaide in 2010. Not sure why it's taken me this long to use it because I am completely loving it!

Oh! And I'm piecing curves. I am loving feeling so confident with curves. I took an online curves class with Rachel Hauser (Stitched in Color) eighteen months ago and found it really enlightening. Back to the sewing!

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.

An inspired life.

a blurry ride

One of the things I hope for in this busy, somewhat chaotic life of mine, is to be visually inspired, excited and stimulated. I love to look at things. Beautiful things. Of course, the definition of beauty can change from person to person and day to day. Then, once I've been inspired, I hope that that inspiration will lead to motivation to create something beautiful myself. It's not a guaranteed thing though and there has been little motivation of late, even though I have seen some truly beautiful and inspiring things! Like the scene above. My back has been sore and I have become a fan of those massage chairs you usually just walk past at the shopping centre. (Does anyone have a $2 coin on them?) Last week as I was being shaken at one of my local shopping centres (seriously, are there more shopping centres per capita in Melbourne, or is it just my area?) I wondered how such a scene would photograph. Like that! Here's to living an inspired life!