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I'm sewing for myself again and for the first time I think I've struck on a winner.

A few years ago, for my last significant birthday, the lovely Tamara was so sweet and made me a lovely nighty as a gift.  It's a fantastic pattern, very simple, but so flattering and comfortable.  Last week she was kind enough to trace the pattern for me and yesterday I sewed up a longer version into a lovely summer maxi dress.  I kid you not when I say I received five compliments on it today, all loving the fabric and amazed at how clever I am!  I'm not great at accepting compliments and greeted them all with surprise followed quickly by "it's not hard, if it was I couldn't do it".

When I got home, the praise I'd received so inspired me that I went out and splurged on the most delicious soft and sheer silk to make a top for a birthday we're helping celebrate next weekend.  My thinking was that I could afford the fabric over buying something new to wear.  Well, by the time I bought silk lining as well, $65 later.....  Now that did include special fine machine needles and silk thread, but still.

I'll try and get a decent picture of the dress but the top, I'll be extra careful with this one, take my time, practice a new skill and hope that I do justice to this lovely muted, watercolour like fabric.

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 More nighties in the softest and most transparent of cottons.

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Hot weather means a clean nighty every few days, which means mummy has been sewing up some new ones.

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Each Chrirstmas we make calendars for the upcoming year for ourselves and the grandparents.  For the grandparents the girls take turns to decorate different months but also mix in some photos.  For ours I keep it to photos, as I love turning the page and being reminded of past moments sometimes over a year later and reliving them for a month at a time.

I found it very hard to decide so ended up selecting 37 images for a required 18!  Is this what it's like being a professional photographer, trying to choose your best shot!  Not quite, but I can imagine.  I just love seeing them all laid out on the kitchen table, a year in our lives.  That's why I maintain this blog and enjoy contributing, for us in the years to come, but it's even more vivid seeing all the images together.  It makes me feel both happy and lucky.

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Two more hairy looms.  In the four years I've been making these decorations I've developed a habit for finishing two and having the others half done - makes the following year exactly the same!

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Today I dropped off this baby to the quilter.  I will have to look back to see when I started this top, but the inspiration was a pillow in a similar pattern completed for Lena's 40th and that's over 2 years ago.

I should be able to collect by the end of the year and can't wait to see how it turns out.

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Me, in the early 70's, with my Holly Hobbit doll, made lovingly by mum.  Yesterday's post got me walking down Memory Lane and it led me from the memory above, to buying this.  The plan is that the girls will each receive one in their Christmas stockings, perhaps one for my great niece as well.  From where I stand there is something thrilling about sharing the memories across the decades.

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My mother stitched these two Holly Hobbie needlepoints for me when I was.... young, over three decades ago.  They hung in my room for many years and then, when I was too grown up for such things, they waited, lurking, in a dark corner of my parents home for a time when a little girl may appear again, interested in such things.

The two pictures have hung together in Ella's room for the past number of years, but recently Ella and Leila had a negotiation which resulted in them having one each in their rooms, with the very clear proviso made by Ella that it's "just for a month".

I'm glad these survived so well.  Mothers know how much these things mean as the years pass, but the young often don't, so as mothers we need to protect and cherish these items for a time when our own young come around to truly appreciating their worth.  I guess there will be a time when I will have to secret these away and perhaps one day my own grandchildren will remember my mother, my childhood and that of their own mothers, through these lovingly stitched works.

Coincidentally I noticed Kate has one of the same on her own wall, I wonder if her own mum stitched it for her?

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My parents are master embroiderers.  I say parents, because there was a phase when my dad sewed alongside my mum when wool embroidery was the craft of choice.  I'm not sure how many they finished but there were letters of the alphabet, each around 50 x 50cm, each letter covered with a flower or plant that corresponded to the letter.  They are somewhere safe, probably in my roof space along with much of mum's other supplies.

My mum has many beautiful cross stitch works on her walls, mainly of Danish design, and I love them all.  I love the memories of mum sewing them and the beauty of the finished works.  Cross stitch isn't for me though, the counting, having to constantly concentrate, it's too precise for my style of handwork.

Over the past few years I have been sewing these Christmas decorations.  Every years three new designs join the gang, 1.5 of this year's patterns already finished.  They remind me of a little red slipper I received many years ago, when I was about Ella's age, from a Hungarian lady my mum worked with.  Her name was Anna, she had very dark hair for a lady of her age, which she wore in a bun at the nape of her neck and she had an ample chest she used to pull me into.  She brought the slipper back from a trip "home" and it is quite delightful.  These "pozie" designs put me in mind of that slipper every year.

Such is my enthusiasm for embroidery, freestyle for lack of the correct term, that I've been scouring new sites and been trying to find just the right work to get me into something big.  Not sure how to start on this but I've decided to try and create my own pattern, of hellebores, or winter roses.  Years ago now Christie inspired me with her red thread work of Alice in Wonderland, so I figure maybe I can draft a pattern too..... Watch this space.

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My almost constant companion sewing alongside me on her own design.

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My Mexican toned lap quilt has found a new home in our lounge room.  These fabrics make me feel very alert and provoke thoughts of warmer climes, spicy food and street music!

Many years ago, when I was in my early 20's, I was on my second trip to the US and Canada and had taken a trip down into Mexico with a Swedish boy who was absorbing my attention for those few moments.  His name was Magnus.  He was a forester in Sweden in the summertime and earned enough that he travelled for the winter months.

We went on a bus down to Tijuana and continued south a few hours by community station wagon, squeezed between locals carrying dogs, chicken, you name it, all the cliches were in that car.  It was hot and sweaty and I was very content squeezed up against my Swede.

We stayed a few days in a beach side town, the name I don't recall.  We swam, we cartwheeled on the beach and we sat talking for many many hours in a little shack that made tacos, the real deal, while we sucked on 60c Coronas.  He baked, he sewed, he was a bit of a revelation for those moments.

These colours remind me fleetingly of that place, at least two lifetimes ago.  Something I haven't thought about for so very long, part of the path that led me here to my little gang.  Mostly though, I am enjoying the sheepy smell of the Matilda's wool batting and figuring that you can actually fit two adults and two increasingly bigger small children happily under a moderately sized lap quilt.

My words read Made for the four of us to snuggle under on our couch on chilly nights.  July 2012

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I adore these fabrics.  Sometimes, when I buy fabric online, it arrives and is a bit of a disappointment.  Not these though, the colour, the joy and the riot of them together just makes me feel happy.

I've been on a quilting bent of late, this one's to be for us.  A lap quilt for our couch, for the girls and I to cuddle up under on movie night, perhaps to keep Geoff and I warm during a late night smooch!  Mix in some soft indigo denim and I'm excited to get it started.

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A low key quilt for a low key friend for her 40th birthday.  I hope she knows that every stitch is recognising her contribution to our lives as well as many others over the past 40 years.

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Two coldy girls in the house today.  We're pottering, sewing, sitting, reading, nothing too exciting.

Leila did, however, make me a laptop so I can play Angry Birds while she plays Moshi Monsters on the big computer.  That scenario is as fictional as my utterly gorgeous new laptop!

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I haven't made any dolls for a while now, but do have a few stashed away.  They are a lot of work and at the time I was making quite a few, it was hard to make any money with them.  Of course anyone who sells handmade goods knows that it's that balance between effort and reward.  I wasn't looking to get rich and honestly, it probably zeroed out in terms of effort for price, but I didn't mind.  Now I tend to focus more on things that are more easily picked up in short snatches.

This lovely lass is off to Ella's prep teacher, a gift for a special girl in her life.  I have to stop myself from giving them to those I appreciate, remembering that they are happy to pay, as I myself would be.

Feeling a little addled today.  There are days when time gets away from me and there is simply too much to squeeze into the hours of one day.  I can feel my insides starting to twist anxiously, which is silly, because the majority of these things are wants rather than things that must be done.  I'm reading a great book and dying to get back to it; I'm into making a quilt for a babe due in a few weeks and want to finish the top; I'm seriously considering going back to school, as in high school to do my VCE and wondering to what end; I'm trying to get our tiny house in order and that makes me feel even more overwhelmed, you know how it gets crazy crazy messy before it gets better?   Aaaargh I'm winding myself up.

As a complete aside, has anyone ever printed their blog into a book format?  I know that there are a few programs you can use to do it for you, but it's long been on my to do list.  It's such a lovely record of our lives, that I would love to see it in print.  Let me know x

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I love this quilt, love, love, love it. I will find it hard to part with, but passing it on to a long awaited babe will make the parting much much easier. Love the crinkly just washed look. Squaring up and binding to take care of. My binding has been a little freestyle in the past, but I'm going to look me up a youtube instruction and aim for perfectly mitred corners on this one.

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Ella's school have a secret Santa every year, with a limit of $5.00. It's quite challenging to find something good for that price and this year Ella was determined to make her gift.

The fabric and thread we had, but lavender we no longer have in our garden. We happened to venture to the Prahan market on Saturday and there they were selling bunches of lavender for ..... $5.00!

I hope the gift is received with the same warm heart with which it is given.

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I've finished appliqueing the top for a friend's pending baby arrival. I am so pleased. I find the tree so appealing and know that when it's completed I will find it very hard to part with this one. I do intend to launch into another for a second friend and then my niece is expecting a baby (I was a very young aunty!) so there's another.

This is for a baby girl, do you think it would suit a boy as well? perhaps with blue leaf accents?

I'm now trying to decide on the backing fabric and came across the one below yesterday, although in a teal colourway. I dithered because it's 20% linen to 80% cotton and I wasn't sure how softly it would wash. Today I'd decided it would do and went to purchase to see it had gone offline. What do you think, is it a good enough match to warrant some searching?

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Far from perfect, kinda like me, but I love it all the same and so do the girls, which is what counts most.

It reminds me a little of my dear friend Lena, who's Danish, simple and yet stylish. Lena, if you're reading, I know I've been hopeless and I'm sorry, using the old cliche "it's not you, it's me". Let's try and talk before you go home for Christmas, let me know when that is. xx

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Block printing is nowhere near as easy as I'd imagined it would be. Given that there's a lot of room for improvement in terms of my preparations, clearing a space, getting everything properly prepped. The reality of our life in a small house means that our kitchen table is where everything happens, so I just can't have it tied up for ages.



I loved the carving part and inspired by Leslie's prints (onegirl) I figured I'd give it a go. You can see the results are quite mucky. The bits around the edges can be easily fixed by using one piece per cut, whereas I squeezed three onto one lino piece. In terms of how to get a nice fully coloured clear image, not sure on that one. If I inked more heavily, the gaps that I wanted clear of colour became filled too.


I'm relatively confident that once edged and hung as a string of somewhat Christmasy flags in the girls rooms I'll forgive the myriad of muck ups. I'll let you know.