Scooter

Scooter – freshly purchased from the gorgeous Meet Me at Mikes and crocheted by Jess! So happy to have little Scooter hanging about the house.

Melbourne craziness

We took the kids into the city on Saturday morning – we wandered the laneways and crossed through Federation Square… for us it was a little like this cheesey musical number (via @twitofalili), but all I can say is that sometimes it pays to have a super grumpy, tired pre-schooler who forces you to abandon your adventure earlier than expected and come home for some r & r. An hour later the city looked like this:

We were there to see Van and Isobel’s work “You Were in my Dream” in Experimenta Utopia Now – apparently there was some flood damage after we left – but if it’s up and going again, it’s very worth getting to before it closes this weekend.

Moomin Mail

Yesterday two parcels arrived from Etsy sellers in Finland.
I finally found a copy of Tove Jansson’s  The Dangerous Journey for a very reasonable price  - in Swedish, yes – but clearly I am turning into an obsessive collector because it doesn’t seem to bother me.

Fabric from Tillukka (via My Paper Crane) and the book plus the beautiful stamps on the package are from Hapsitukka.

Amelia’s quilt – 2 years in the making

I’ve finally finished Amelia’s quilt! I’ve been working on it for about 2 years… coming to a grinding halt at some stage when it got to the hand quilting. As with all these things, when I actually sat down and got to it, things seemed to get done quicker than I had imagined in the lead up. The hand quilting was not so arduous when done chatting to my friends or the girls. The binding was a debacle, as usual for me, but it came together when I firmly told myself that if it wasn’t perfect it really didn’t matter. I started off following the Purl Bee instructions and Heather Bailey’s pdf instructions, but then decided to wing it, which was a big mistake. So it’s a little lumpy in parts but it’s done. Of course, I was seized by the desire to sew on the binding when access to my machine was at its most tricky – all the books and dvds from the rest of the house are currently piled all around and under my table while we are painting – so even pushing down on the foot pedal meant my whole body was at an awkward angle. But did I stop to rearrange? Clear my desk of extra bits? Of course not! I just cursed and swore and shouted at people who dared interupt until it was done (20 minutes! Not weeks on end as I might have imagined somewhere along the line).

And tonight Amelia is snuggled under the new quilt and loves it.  While the full-on nature of the design is kind of “Me 2 years ago”, and I would probably come up with a different kind of scheme or combination now (a little more subtlety perhaps?), it’s done! I can cross that one off my “Big List”.

*** Most of the fabrics are Denyse Schmidt beauties – mostly Flea Market Fancy. There are a couple of Kaffe Fassett solids in there too.  All were a pleasure to work with ***

My parents quite like books

Doodling

We are slowing moving into my favourite time of year – Autumn that is. I am still yet to catch my breath after the start of the school term and, as we are doing home renovations, there is chaos all around us, but I can see the golden autumn light shining up ahead with the promise of less heat-waves and more polished floorboards.

So, now what to do?
What to do?
Where are my children? Far from home! (well. not really. Quite close by at educational institutions actually.)

But suddenly I am all at sea. After 7 years where motherhood has been my primary focus I am wondering how to scramble back.

“Let the nothingness wash over you” is what my dad would say, he in the midst of the first days of retirement. “Write a blog post!” My mum would chime in, always checking and often being disappointed these days. “Make some more of those bloody bunnies and make yourself some cash!” is what some of my friends would say, still rolling their eyes at the ludicrous yet profitable nature of that pass-time. “Get your illustration folio together and get some freelance work” some of the others would suggest. “Finish that flaming second draft, you lazy nong,” Is what another bunch entirely would shout at me, as their waggle their chopsticks over Beef in Mandarin sauce at our favourite cafe. “Make me a chocolate cake!” Is what Amelia would shout as she waves goodbye at the school gate. “Don’t forget to pick me up and then can we watch tv?” Is what Lily would say.

But I don’t know. I just don’t know. This term is so short. Before I know it I will have settled into a routine only to find that we are on the eve of the Easter Holidays. Can I put off real life until term two perhaps?

In the meantime I am going to drink a cup of tea, read Keri Smith’s How To Feel Miserable as An Artist and write and enormous list.

Old Noey & New Noey

Noey 2005

2005 Noey and 2010 Noey Redux

New Noey in old (washed and pressed) dress

I have just finished working on a special project.

The top photo is Old Noey, first made and sold in February 2005. She was one of my very first batch of kitten softies. After Noey travelled across the sea, she was given to a little girl and was much loved and cuddled – for almost five fabulous years. But after all that cuddling she started to wear  thin. Stuffing started to come out and her head had become distorted. There was a little breakfast cereal on her stockings and my hand stitching had started to unravel — so much so there was a fair chance that her head would come off altogether. So Old Noey came back here again for some R & R, special stuffing based chicken soup, and Australian sunshine. She’s had a good holiday and now has roses in her cheeks and a fresh spring in her step. She’s packed her new spare sundress and her journal and she’s heading back to Georgia, USA to little Tess who has been waiting patiently for her return.

Touching base

Only four days into term and our mornings, like every other family’s, have become alarmingly busy. We have lists to streamline the mobilisation of our family unit to get out the door and off to our various activities and mostly we manage to all pile into the car and be backing out of the driveway on time but occasionally things go under the radar – like making sure shoes go on the right feet. Fortunately we spotted this little oversight before she stumbled into her very first kinder session. Perhaps if we had missed it, and I had also been sporting a wild hairdo with a pencil or a twig sticking out of it, and an inside out cardigan while forgetting my name and which child I was enrolling we would have looked on the outside exactly how I am feeling on the inside. I am guessing I will find the natural rhythm of all of this soon enough, but for now watch out for the wild woman with the fist full of hastily scribbled lists.

Hello new year! (finally)

Oh hello! Is it really the end of January already?

Summer has been good to us this year. More rain than usual, a good Solstice, Christmas and New Year full of fun and warmth and love and delicious food. We took a week long holiday in Sydney  to stay with my brother’s family. It was so humid all week that we swam in the pool every day until we were waterlogged and slept all night soundly under the fans. We visited the beach to feel the warm sand and marvel at the Blue of the Bondi surf and sky.  We saw inner-city spiders as big as our hands hanging in intricate webs which we had to duck under (screaming, of course) to continue on our way. We saw the Tom-Tom Crew at the Sydney Opera House and beat-boxed our way all the way home. We celebrated my gorgeous nephew’s 7th birthday in tepanyaki style (see him catch a raw egg in a bowl on his head? See my girls thrill at the spectacle?). I love Sydney. It seems to me that it is a wonderfully physical city and you experience it with your senses.

And there were movies (Fantastic Mr Fox is indeed fantastic, Bright Star made me cry mascara down my cheeks, Avatar made me fall in love with a beautiful blue cgi version of Sam Worthington) and there have been late nights, sleep-ins, heat waves, thunderstorms and experimental  pavlova making,

With school starting next week, and Lily starting kindergarten, I feel as though I am about to enter the next phase of my life. I am quite excited about this prospect but am yet to work out what the exact focus of that will be. I have an inkling that there will be lots of writing, and illustration and art. There may also be some cooking and some crafting and some watching of movies. There might also be a little home renovation and a garden overhaul. I haven’t made any resolutions for the first time in forever and instead I have wandered into the new year trying to remember how it felt to be 10 – when life was full of possibilities and excitement and boundless enthusiasm blanketed in a sense of love and security. 10 was good. 38’s going to be better.

What’s Hot Christmas week

This is a bit late today as I have spent the morning searching high and low for the cable to transfer photos from my camera to the computer. I finally found it in amongst all the christmas chaos.

The how:
To play along, it’s as easy as writing up your own hot/not list on your blog and then linking back to me here at loobylu.com and then adding your url to the widget below.

Hot

Solstice is hot: – We had lots of guests last night and our Midsummer feast this year consisted of roast chicken and vegetables, pavlova, Paul’s Christmas pud and chocolates. We drank pimms and lemonade, sparkling champagne and sparkling red. After dinner the children made fairy rings and then Phil took them out way past their bedtime to see the christmas lights in the streets nearby (which apparently was the “most awesome thing ever”) followed by a new Tove Jansson book read by Nan for bedtime stories. Everything was a little bit sparkly last night.

Pavlova cooking: – Something that went just right. My first trial pav was you classic pav laden with cream and berries. It was so good. For Solstice I tried Jamie O’s version with some lime juice and coconut stirred through the mixture. I found it just a little too sweet but still successful.

I made a scrap fabric wreath! Inspired completely by Nan and her easy to follow instructions.

Paper snowflakes: – I can’t stop making them. There is that wonderful moment of surprise when you unfold the snowflake and discover what the delicate cuts have made. I use this image as inspiration (via @Maggie) and here are some instructions.

Aunty Cookie’s kind loan of her wizz bang badge making machine: – Don’t slow down near me or I might whip you up and turn you into a badge. It’s too much fun.

Christmas carols on my ipod: – Our little music box in the kitchen is blasting out the christmasy tunes – we have Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Sufjan Stephens, Vintage carols with the likes of Bing Cosby and Doris Day, Christmas in Sweden (from Anna’s kind gift over at Dos Family)

Alma: – (above) the beautiful (but creepy) animated short is available to watch online for a short time this Christmas. It is so hot. She is an exquisite character.

This set of stacking drawers.

Not

Food fail: – Tears and a bashed head while meringue cooking. Failed dips (too much garlic in the beetroot, too much smoke in the baba ghanouj) and a slightly dried out solstice chicken. Argh. never mind. It’s the company & conversation that counts.

Last Monday: –  Monday was a bad day. I don’t need to go into it really, but it consisted of tired, tantruming children, tired parents, awkward (awful) social moments and failed culinary plans.

I didn’t take a single photo of our Solstice party! So not hot. I guess we were living in the moment.

So how about you?