My baby likes to wake at night. She’s a little owl.
Today I am tired tired tired.
But I did manage to pop out and buy some polystyrene cones and beads to start making a few of these beauties (via Alex). It seems I having trouble stringing sentences together, so it’s early to bed. Goodnight!
I decided to tell Amelia that I was planning to make her a doll for Christmas and asked her if this is something she would really like. She has an enormous amount of stuffed toys and dolls, and while she loves her teddy, her Buzz, her Ugly Doll and one or two other likely lads, she isn’t really a big doll girl. She told me that what she really wants is a friend for Sally Jeero (her Ugly Doll) and could I make one? I asked her to draw me a picture of what she thinks it should look like and she did so with great enthusiasm. As you can see above, she is a pretty pink monster, with four eyes (plus a spare in one hand), holding a flower. So I have dug out my length of pink polar fleece, drawn up a pattern and am ready to go.
I started sewing up Lily’s doll last night and it’s an absolute pleasure to be doing something crafty again. It was a little hard to get started but now that I am in the middle of it, I can’t think of anything else. I have been worrying about the hair in a kind of obsessive way, but Hillary’s post about her cute little rag-haired doll was a total inspiration for me. I am looking forward to posting some W.I.P. photos of my attempt at a similar thing on Friday…
Yesterday the lights of Melbourne dimmed a little as we revved up our old cooker and steamed our Christmas puddings for 8 hours.
Stir-Up Sunday came a little early for us this year, as I decided I should strike while I felt up to it rather than waiting for the official day when we might be having one of those days when stirring an enormous bowl of fruit seems just a bit beyond me. Everyone had a stir as tradition dictates, including Lily who put the end of the spoon in her mouth – but I didn’t realise we were supposed to make wishes. All the while I was stirring I was thinking about how nice it would be to have a holiday in Byron Bay – so maybe that will come true by accident.
Obviously I won’t be able to tell you whether this was all a success or a failure until the weekend before Christmas when we have the first of our family gatherings and eat pudding number 1 — but it’s dark and rich looking and smells pretty good. We ended up using Delia’s recipe with some tips (and fruit buying from the Vic Market) from Paul — he uses vegetable shortening (copha) instead of suet, and only half the recommended amount. So that’s what we did too.
1-2 A scan from an old Home Companion magazine
3 I’m almost 100% sure this is a Cath Kidston store… and I found it either on or via a blog very recently. I thought it was from yvestown but going back I can’t find it. LOVE the red bed.
4. Pretty sure this was from ebay
5. Japanese craft book?
6. Japanese craft book?
7. Ebay
8. Lost in Translation
9. I have no idea where I got this or who it’s by. I can’t read the signature at the bottom right
10. From a Japanese craft book – pretty sure it’s from this one
11 – 13 Are all from a Japanese craft book about making retro dolls – if anyone can tell me the ISBN of this one I would be so happy.
14 No idea! Must be a Japanese craft book
15. I think this one was from a Japanese craft book about making bags. Not sure what the title or ISBN is.
Yesterday started out beautifully… good moods all round – music, gingerbread, jokes, laughing, quiet self-directed creative play etc etc. And then I made the mistake of letting Amelia – no, sorry, correction – actually suggesting to Amelia that she might like to watch an hour of tv. Maybe it’s just a coincidence and maybe it would have happened anyway, but she did and then afterwards it was MELTDOWN and TIME OUT and Amelia SHOUTING and MUM SHOUTING and Amelia SOBBING and Lily SCREECHING and Mum tearing at huge wads of her own hair in frustration and then thankfully Dad taking one of the small ones off to the park for an hour while I cooked dinner. Once more peace and happiness descended until bedtime.
This basket is currently in residence on our kitchen table. It makes me feel cheerful just looking at it. We have a bit of a Moomin craze going on at the moment. Big-P is reading Amelia Moomin Valley in November at bedtimes which means all things moomin permeate everything else.
I have a folder on my desk top called MISC which is a place where I quickly save images from the web which I find inspiring. It’s a little like the digital version of my scrapbooks. When I am feeling in need of a quick visual buzz I browse through the images which seem to be mostly taken from Japanese craft books. The only problem is that I haven’t made any note of where these images come from, which is fine while I remember, but a couple of years on and I have no idea. So here are a few images from this folder, and if anybody recognises where they come from please leave a comment.
Today was going to be my Christmas shopping day (trying to keep it to the minimum this year ) – but I couldn’t have picked a worse day weather-wise… Snow?! I have sent Amelia off to Kinder in her thermal underwear and her woolly hat while she lamented that there hasn’t been as many “short sleeves days” as I had promised would be the case as we come towards the end of Spring. Lily is lying quietly tucked up in bed, looking at her hands in between naps, which is really what any sensible girl would be doing on a day like this. With two weeks until Summer, and weather gurus talking about it being another scorcher, I am not sure how many of us were ready for this cold snap.
Regardless of whether we do actually get any snow here, it has started to hail so I am afraid for my little tomato plants newly living in the ground. Perhaps it will make them hardier… perhaps that’s wishful thinking.
Every Tuesday for the last couple of terms Mum has been taking Amelia to a music class over in Canterbury. It’s singing and dancing and so on for little kids. Both Mum and Amelia love it, neither of them grumbling about the prospect of attending each week. Now that Mum is in Japan, I thought it would be nice for Amelia to see out the term so we hit the road this morning, heading in the direction I knew the class was in.
It’s quite unusual for me to head off in an unknown direction completely unprepared as I am more likely to spend a great deal of time studying the map book memorising any new route before setting out. But there was no time this morning, and I did have a pretty good feel for where we were headed.
Minutes after I had turned right towards Canterbury road Amelia started up.
“Mum, I’m not sure that this is the right direction!”
So I was thrown into a moment of panic, maybe I was completely wrong about where I had imagined we were headed.
“Are you sure?”
“No! But I don’t remember any of this street!”, this being a street we drive up almost every other day to get to the local shops. So I kept driving.
“Hmm, yes this is right Mum! I see the big M for McDonalds.” She said. And we continued happily until we came to the next major intersection.
“I think we might have to go down there Mum!” I ignored her, pushing on to the place where I was sure the class was. “And where’s my little snack? Nanny always has a little snack for me in the car!”
Minutes later “Oh yes! This is right mum! Yes, yes! Keep going.”
So we did until Amelia shrieked; “I don’t recognise this! This is wrong Mum! We are heading North! To the North Pole! No that’s wrong!”
“No! We are heading West!” I reassured her.
“West? Is my class in the West? I didn’t know that? I don’t think it’s in the West, Mum.”
“Well, it’s West of where we live.” And we were getting pretty close to where I thought the class was so I added, “So this all looks familiar, doesn’t it? And we turn the corner up here?”
“Ummm, yes, yes. NO! NO! I don’t recognise this! We’re lost! LOST IN THE WOODS! MUM!… .. oh yes, this is it, this is right. Keep going!”.
But now I really did need to rely on Amelia’s directions as we were in the back streets of Canterbury and I did remember vaguely that Suzette (who also attends the class with Jazzy) said that there was parking off to the left somewhere.
“Ok, we’re nearly there. Is this the street we turn down?”
“Yes! That’s it! And you need to park right here! Because there are no car parks near the class!” So I pulled in to the very first available spot. And we got out of the car and walked for what seemed like miles pass empty car parking spot after empty car parking spot. But at least once we were on foot Amelia was dead certain of the direction of the class. We arrived with ten minutes to spare and a sense of immense satisfaction.
