Coming up...

A few weeks ago, Cam announced that she was going to be running a bag sew-a-long in August. I am in a serious sewing drought so I told her that I would most definitely be sewing a long!!

Now as a bag addict, I have officially been on handbag ban for 18 months now as I have so many that if I buy anymore I will be in serious trouble! So I sat and thought about what kind of bag I would like to make for this adventure. Some of you, who read my previous blog might know that my wonderful mother purchased me a DSLR for my birthday back in January... WOW!! I have been cautiously taking it out of the house, terrified of dropping and breaking it since. So I thought to myself... hey! why can't I make a camera bag?? I have seen a few around and thought well why not?!?!

I have set to researching fabric, patterns, tutorials, construction ideas and such and have a small amount of an idea what to do. It is ALWAYS a good idea to have an end product in mind. As a very visual person, I need to know what I am making. I am often saying to the MR "if I can picture it in my head then I will have no problem making it".

So today's task is to sit down with textas and paper and draw myself a sketch so I can make a plan and sort out some dimensions. Then I can get started with a good idea of what I am doing (totally not an excuse to play drawing!!). As I said to the MR the other day.. I am going to take my time, do it slowly and properly and make something beautiful for myself!

So wish me luck as I fill up my pin-board with ideas and head over to Cam's yourself and sign up to sew along too!

My Creative Space

This week in my space I have been pottering around making a few things here and there. 

I made a pair of super bright, very cute pj pants from some flannel that I bought from Cam when she was de-stashing ages ago. This fabric was supposed to be turned into baby wipes to sell at the markets with WeePantz. But baby wipes weren't really a top seller and I never got around to making them up. The plan in my fabric choice was seriously to blind someone's eyeballs. The MR HATES orange for some reason unknown to me - good reason to wear it if you ask me!

 

 

They have this cute ribbon on the back. Yes, purposely child-like. My kids can't have all the fun right?? But, alas - I made them a little too small, so they can sit in the sewing room for a little while til Ive lost a few more kilos I think otherwise they will be more like stretch-less flannel leggings... oh I know you want some!

 

I spent some time tracing out this pattern for Miss-R. I know, I know, I said I was going to make her this skirt first, but Miss-R got really excited and chose her fabric for this one so I will make this first for her.

This arrived today too from crafty mamas. After looking through the online preview of the designs the other day I thought there was probably only one or two things I wouldn't like to make for summer once it finally arrives! So I went ahead and bought it... Gotta use up my fabric stash right?!?!

I am also researching for my bag adventure next month, which I am super excited about.

There are lots more crafty peeps sharing their spaces over here - check out their awesomeness :)

Wordless Wednesday

making dinner...

Sunday Snippets

 

 

So what happened at your place this week?

Playing along with Sunday Snippets on Tinniegirl

Gotta...

...stop reading and start studying!

The end of this study period is almost near, which means I am in a mad dash to finish all of my journal and portfolio tasks. Anyone who knows me well, also knows that when I have a lot of un-motivating or uninteresting work to do, there's always so much washing, cleaning, folding and ironing to do and I simply just HAVE to do them NOW!

This morning my excuse has been that I NEED to catch up on blog reading... thankfully I have caught myself at 10am only 1 hour in before I get too caught up and forget to do my journals.

I did find this wonderful giveaway in my travels.... maybe you could go enter too! (or not... leave the prize to me!!)

My Creative Space

This week I have been pottering around in my sewing room. It has been so overrun with nappy fabric recently that I can't get through the door. But thankfully I sent off a whole lot of it this week which meant I could get in there to finish off one of my Unfinished Objects from the other week.

As I said back then, I have had these little explorer overalls cut out for three years and have never gotten around to sewing them up.As a consequence of them being cut out so long ago (read - before I had my current glasses), some of the pieces were slightly wonky. But they still sewed up okay with only a little adjustment.

They are the 12mths size, and I used some cotton linen for the main fabric which has a really nice texture to it. I used some Sandi Henderson Farmers Market for the straps, waistband and cuffs. I remember getting these fabrics for my 25th birthday from my mother in law as they have such a gorgeous fabric shop up near her place that I LOVE to hang out it every time we visit.  

I made one little change to the pattern instructions - being that I attached the buttons to the straps rather than the bib of the overalls so that if the straps were too long my sister could sew on some extra buttons to make them shorter. I always hated having overalls that only had one button when my kids were babies, having the extra buttons helps them to fit longer.

The buttons are some beautiful wooden ones that my mother in law sent with the fabric. She knew I had this pattern sitting around, asked the lady in the shop to find the pattern and had bought everything I needed to sew them up. It was a very thoughtful gift, and I am glad that even though it took me three years to finish them off, they will finally be worn.

 

I sent them off to my sister the other day, and can't wait to see some modeled shots (hopefully they fit!).

I am hoping that having some sewing success lately is going to motivate me to sew some more. I have some more gorgeous patterns and apparently a-lot of fabric to work with so I really would like to!

Check out the latest from the home of My Creative Space over on Village Voices.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

we're taking some time to smell the flowers...

Baking away...

I am doing some baking this evening after my day at home with Mr-O.

English muffins is on the menu after I found the recipe here.

I also made pikelets to to go in tomorrow's lunches just cos I am THAT awesome a mummy ;)

Hope your Tuesday was wonderful. I'd best get back to these books... they are screaming my name!

a bit too quiet...

It is a bit quiet around our house this week. Mr-O and Miss-R had a wonderful time away at Granny's Farm last week, in fact Mr-O bawled the whole way home because he really didn't want the holiday to end! This week, it is so quiet, although the children came back from the farm on Friday, my Miss-R is away visiting her dad this week.

It's amazing how when both children are away you celebrate, stay up late, go out to dinner, have spicy food, sleep in etc. etc. But when only one is gone you are reminded of the void. Mr-O and I are having fun spending some time together, he follows me around the house, gives me loads of cuddles and kisses and we get to hang out. I do so miss my little miss though and am looking forward to her coming back (even if it isn't for another few days!). Although I hear she is having a wonderful holiday.

So here I am, sitting under a doona because I simply cannot stand being cold and I have a pile of books so so very tall to look through tonight to work on my assignment. The MR is out at hockey and I am making the most of my time alone. I also have a HUGE pile of boxes, full of fabric ready to be shipped off to their new owners tomorrow. It is nice to see some empty shelves in the sewing room. Makes my fabric addiction so much less obvious!

Hope your Tuesday was fabulous!

brain fry

I have a huge week of study this week, one assignment due tonight, another due on Sunday. 

So I am sitting with my head in a book, well there are many books open and I am attempting to spread my head around the lot of them at once... Its making for a very fried brain, but my assignments are coming along beautifully.

I got to do some recording yesterday. Which was lots of fun, and I hope to have a little demo of covers ready soon to send out to the local markets, pubs etc to try to pick up some little gigs. 

I have done something fantastic and cleared a whole shelf of my fabric stash off by selling a bunch of my minky fabrics.  YES!!!I'm still on fabric ban though! clearing off one shelf means nothing to the MR!

 

Hope your Monday is much more exciting than mine, and that rather than sitting in the same chair doing the same thing that you have done for the last 5 days, you are making something beautiful!

My Creative Space

I am playing along today with My Creative Space. Something I haven't done in a while as I haven't had a blog to show off on, but now I can, so I will!

This week as I said yesterday, I have been spending some time clearing out my space. Organising, cleaning, throwing out things and deciding what I might like to sell when I do a de-stash.

The MR and I have decided that I am not to buy any more fabric for a while as I have SO SO SO MUCH of it that I need to use first!

There's a fair amount of fabric there... LOTS of minky and there's a whole box of fabric prints that I hadn't folded yet.... (No... I am not a fabric addict at all...)

I also found this guy while I was cleaning up... hiding in a box of fabric.

 Not looking so impressed with being in a feminine environment....

There were a few pterodactyls in there too.... I think someone is hiding his toys from his big sister?

So all the cleaning got me in the mood to do some actual sewing, and I ended up doing something I had been meaning to do for a while which is change this dress into a maxi-skirt.

I saw someone else blog about doing this a little while ago. I must confess however that I didn't read the instructions or follow them in order to make this skirt... I just took their idea and did it my way.

So something you should know about me. I am really tall for a girl... (or at least everyone keeps telling me so!). At 5'11" it is quite difficult to buy pants, jumpers, shoes, basically anything (you guys really are all horribly short it is not me at all). So when I bought this dress, I really loved it at first, but then after a couple of wears, I realised that it really was too short, there was way too much shin showing and it was at that awkward length that doesn't look any kind of cool at all.

So I chopped it off just under the armpits there and made it into a skirt! It fits perfectly (oh yeah baby, actually covers my whole legs!). I wore it out to dinner with the MR on our date, wore leggings underneath and noone was any wiser that I had layers on... no shin showing here!

A slight triumph might actually motivate me to do a bit more sewing. I am finding it tough to find reasons to sew lately, perhaps I am scared of doing something crappy, perhaps I am not enjoying it currently... not sure. But I do know that there is some orange spotty flannel there that would make awesome pajama bottoms and I know that I wont make them too short!!

Be sure to head over and look what everyone else is doing in their creative spaces today over on Village Voices.

W.I.P Wednesday Shame Files

I'm linking up with freshly pieced for my first Work In Progress (W.I.P) Wednesday. The freshly pieced blog is a quilting blog, but seeing as I am still sewing, I figured I could still join in ;).

I have been spending a bit of time clearing out my sewing room the last few days. Deciding what to keep, what to throw out and of course what to sell off. More on the cleaning tomorrow.

In my travels through my piles and piles of fabric, I did discover a few projects gone by the way-side over the years. It really is the shame piles because some of them could have been finished and I just plain old didn't! 

So here's my W.I.P's for this week...

The first is a pair of little explorer overalls. 

I cut these out when Mr-O was a baby to sew up for him and never got around to it (probably got distracted by sewing nappies). I remember finding them again a year or so later when my sister had a little boy the same age and thinking that I should sew them up for him... yeah, its quite obvious that happened!! Now that I've found them... thankfully, my sister is quite good at making little boys, and has another which will fit them! hooray!! So I might just sew these up and send them to her.

A piece of pre-shirred fabric cut to my size. 

I remember buying and cutting this fabric but can't remember why on earth I haven't finished it. A quick project for one day that I feel like sewing but don't want to do too much methinks. It will be nice to put away for summer.

A fairy dress for Miss-R.

I'm so good at finishing dresses... I even sewed the hem on this one, and then never put the elastic in for it to fit her around the bust and waist.

 A pair of unfinished work pants.

I remember making these and got so caught up in other things that I didn't put the buttons on and when I went to that I couldn't find them! Looks like I will be getting me some new work pants soon... once I put those buttons on!!

So there's my shame files... hopefully I can turn those into finished products! Be sure to head over and check out what everyone else is working on also!

freedom!!

It's school holidays here in Melbourne and my gorgeous gorgeous children have gone off with Granny to the farm for a few nights for a holiday, giving me a lovely couple of days off from motherhood. I am so so grateful for their trip as it gives me some time to myself that I very rarely get.

So rather than wiping bottoms and peeing with the door open this week just in case anyone needs me in that 30 seconds, I'm going to spend my week doing EVERYTHING that I want to do! 

The first thing I want to do is spend time getting ahead on some of my study. I have a couple of assignments due next week so I have spent most of today sitting underneath a blankie like a little old lady reading away without interruption. 

I also intend to spend some time working on Calisthenics costumes for Miss-R as competition season is coming up in a few weeks.

 

This little dress is a bit too small, so I have to let it out for her to wear it comfortably. There's also a small stain there which I was going to attempt to tackle, but after finding the exact fabric on special at spotlight I am going to just replace the panel as it is only tacked on. There's also a leotard to take in which is kinda freaking me out a bit as I don't play nice with lycra... especially when it's sparkly...

My Sew-Jo has been on vacation for a few months, so I am hoping that this project will fan the passionate flames rather than squash them!

I've also got to re-sequin Miss-R's dress bag as being pulled in and out of car boots for 2 years has lost it a few sequins. That reminds me... I have to go get some more sequins!!

So, back to the reading after a trip to the grocery shop to purchase something to cook for dinner that my kids definitely wouldn't eat!!!!

over being a sook

So yesterday I decided to stop being such a sook after being on here.

I went to the shop and bought some cold and flu tablets, then..

 

I went out the back and harvested our large rocket plants.

I made a delicious vegetarian lasange (that my children refused to eat because it contained vegetables).

I then had a nice hot shower, and I went to work. 

The day didn't end up being so bad after all. Funny how when you decide to be positive rather than negative things change.

Today we had a stage rehearsal for Miss-R for her calisthenics, and then the kids had some friends over for a play. Was wonderful to hear screaming coming from my backyard!

I think tomorrow will be a study day.. I didn't get much more done yesterday, and today wasn't much better. I've decided that is okay though, its more important to be sane than to drive myself to negative insanity reading things that wont sink in because I can't be bothered/ I'm too cold/ tired/ sick.

My Creative Space...

It's been a while since I have played. But next week I do believe I will play along with My Creative Space.

For this week, I think I will just stalk other people's crafty goodness.

feeling less than human

Today is one of those days... I am behind with my uni work this week. I'm still not really sure why. I was really thrown by the heater fiasco on Monday and I didn't really get any reading done after work, which has really set me back.

Mr-O has been really needy this week too. He's so so clingy (I guess its just one of those stages) which has made it really difficult to read, get on a computer do anything really other than read Cars, watch Spiderman and give cuddles. Perhaps a couple of late-nights over the weekend, while he is asleep will help me catch up.

It's been so cold here overnight and with no heating I don't think any of us are really sleeping very well. I woke up at 5.30 FREEZING so just got up and sat in front of a heater. Was actually a good time to get into some uni reading. No kids to distract me and a nice blanket and heater to keep me warm. 

source

 I don't feel much like this today though, I can feel that stuffy nose, slightly cluggy chest feeling as well which always comes with this time of the year (although Ive dodged the flu quite a bit lately so my number might be up).

 

 

source

I feel a bit more like this... technology isn't completely working for me, and there's a mountain of books on my desk that keeps falling over. I am not really in the mood to sit and read about cognitive constructivism and its relationship to social constructivism as interesting as it is of course.

 Thank goodness though, I have finished one part of my work for the week, now to read about formative assessment. Perhaps a bit of a meander through blog-land for a bit first though. When your head is slowly filling with snot, its difficult to try to put any information in it...

 

hump day...

Wednesdays are generally a fairly busy day for me and Mr-O and today is no exception.

 We've been to story time at the local library for some stories, singing and craft...

We've been and done the week's grocery shop, every little boy's favorite chore...

Now we've sat down and had a deliciously healthy lunch (well mine was, Mr-O had noodles), and I'm enjoying a cup of chai while I write away and he watches movies having a little rest.

 I also have to read some of this before we walk to the school to pick up Miss-R. 

I also made a promise to Miss-R that I'd make her a new skirt for her casual dress day on Friday at school for the end of term. I was thinking of this one.

I won this pattern last year on Toni's blog when it was released and I am yet to use it. This might just be my chance... especially since I bought a bunch of new patterns yesterday that accidentally fell in my cart when looking at them online.

Good news on our heater, it should be fixed soon! Hooray! Last night was apparently Melbourne's coldest night in 8 years, no wonder all 5 of us (that's counting the cat who snuggled in) were in our bed this morning!

Anyway, I best be off to be a good girl, read my textbooks so I can get some crafty time in later. 

Hope your Wednesday is wonderful.

winter warming...

We're heading for a top of 12 degrees Celsius here in Melbourne today. Normally I would say that was fine - we live in Melbourne, if I wanted tropical I should move to Cairns or something. But this is the extent of heating we have at the moment in our house...

Excuse my dodgy photography - a fan heater isn't exactly the most wonderful model.

It's been one of those annoying, niggly weeks here at our place. Our dishwasher died on Friday as well as a bunch of other annoying little things. But the icing on the cake happened yesterday.

Yesterday morning we awoke to the wonderful smell of electrical smoke in our house, smoke alarms went off and the power went out. We grabbed our coats and raced out the front and called the fire brigade who came along and after some investigating, told us that our heater malfunctioned - the fan broke or something (I don't pretend to understand these kinds of things) causing a small fire (I think) Pretty sure when we turned off the heater it went out, they didn't need to break out any hoses. 

Basically - our house didn't burn down - hooray!! But my heater is broken - poo!! I am grateful that the house didn't burn down, don't get me wrong - so so so so so grateful!! I will be changing my habit of leaving the heater on low overnight in winter and just turning it off. Not worth the risk!

So Mr-O and I sit here in front of my little fan heater. We'll put on our jackets and scarves and beanies until we are warm. I'm sure once the sun is out we will be more able to keep the house warm, so long as we don't leave this room...

Hope your day is full of sunshine and warmth...

a new place...

I have had blogs before...

My most recent blog was a part of my website / business which I am closing at the end of this month. I had a handmade modern cloth nappy business where I sold WeePantz Cloth Nappies.

WeePantz was such an achievement for me. I started my business in the midst of post-natal depression. It helped me to grow, to move on. It gave me something to focus on besides the feeling like I was inside a record that was on repeat day after day. WeePantz was beautiful and wonderful, and having other people love the things that I had made with my own hands, designed with the ideas in my mind, that gave me a feeling that cannot describe.

I am a mummy. Being a mum is such an exhausting, emotionally draining, awesome, fantastic, frustrating, rewarding and challenging job. It is like a roller-coaster.  I love my kiddies so so much. They are an amazing blessing and make me smile like no one else can. I have a little girl who is 7, and a little boy who is 3.

I went back to my job of making coffee last year, I love making coffee. I especially love making coffee in an environment that is fast-paced. Being busy is something that I long for. I don't enjoy being bored and generally fill in my time with the many projects I have going on.

I LOVE to sew. Possibly the reason I started WeePantz was because it fed my fabric addiction. If people bought my wares, I had more excuse to sew. Sewing is a happy place for me. A place where no one can bother me, where I can make something beautiful.

I LOVE music... Once-upon-a-time I had made the decision to marry my guitar and ride off into the sunset with nothing but the wind in my hair and a song in my heart. I never got to do that, but my guitar and I have our little affairs off in the corner when I am attempting to ignore my textbooks. I used to be in a band, I miss getting to sing every day like crazy.

I am really looking forward to being a teacher.  I went back to my university study this year. I love learning how to teach, except when I have to read more than I like of boring boring textbooks. I have to remind myself that the end justifies the means and that I have to read those boring boring textbooks so I can be a good teacher. 

Well - now that the introductions are over.... the next chapter has begun, lets see where it takes me!