28th February 2010
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 ***
3rd October 2009
My girl is tucked up in bed with a fever after having spent her birthday driving back in the car from NSW feeling lousy. Not much of a birthday. She came home to find a new (second hand!) desk and lots of lovely stationery to fill its drawers but she was too tired and sick to enjoy it.
I can hardly believe she turned seven today. I am so lucky to know her and her kind heart.
Happy Birthday Miss Amelia. xox
18th July 2009
The girls have gone through the fence for a play with the neighbours so the house is suddenly very quiet and very empty… apart from the mess! I started to tidy things up and found this in Amelia’s school bag. Lucy is a reoccurring character around these parts. There have been stories about building tree houses, going to school, dealing with a little sister and so on. I was happy to see our heroine in heart-shaped glasses busting stereotypes again in her most recent adventure. Go Lucy!
21st May 2009
I asked Amelia to clean up her room on the weekend and after about five minutes she said to me, “You know how Nanny cleans up my room sometimes, well what happens if she gets bored and needs a little break?” and I thought about my Mum and how she cleans and I said “Well, she wouldn’t actually stop until it was done, would she?” and Amelia totally agreed and I knew we were both thinking of the same image of my Mum as a whirlwind of action. Neither Amelia nor I are like that when it comes to being tidy – making mess? Yes. Putting it all away again? If we have to, and then it’s very slowly and reluctantly. So instead of going back to clean her room again, she decided she needed to sit down and write to Nanny to get some words of advice.
Translation:
“Dear Nanny, You know how my room is always messy, well I do try to tidy it up but I do not know how to do it. Can you give me some advice? From Amelia”
And instead of cleaning up the house for some afternoon guests right now, I am posting a blog post about it. So – there you go. Like Mother, like daughter.
3rd December 2008
MixTape arrived in the nick of time yesterday. Amelia was having a no-school day due to a heavy cold but of course around 9.30am she was bored out of her mind, and driving me out of mine. Our friendly parcel postman left a delightful package on the front deck and it was opened to reveal MixTape zine’s Kids Issue. Inside we discovered a quick and easy, super cute tutorial for making Yumstie Felt Brooches and Amelia, with her very rudimentary sewing skills (but only a little help from me), immediately whipped out three. Her favourite bit was choosing the buttons to coordinate with the felt flower and then her next favourite bit was presenting them as gifts to people with great flourish.
And there’s lots of other awesome stuff in this MixTape issue – The Crafty Lady profile is of Amber Carvan who is one of my heroes – (20,000 subscribers Amber?? Holy MOLEY!) (and who is selling her newly revised for 2008 Christmas Craft book which is totally worth buying and downloading), I want to make the Naughts and Crosses Pouch, and put together a nature table, and grow some grass hair, and make puffy paint… and all that!
Nichola and Justine have sent me five copies of The Kids Issue to give away to five Loobylu readers (because I did the cover!) so leave me a comment letting me know what your favourite Christmas craft or activity for kids is and I will randomly pick five lucky recipients. Comments will be closed on Friday afternoon at 2pm (Melbourne time).
** Comments are now closed! Thanks! **
24th November 2008
I had lots of bits and pieces left over from making Amelia’s (still unfinished) quilt, and they are being put to good use. Over the weekend we decided that Tali (the doll for baby Georgina) needed a quilt to go with her new bed. Amelia has been working on a kind of freeform patchwork for a while now, and finally it had a reason to come together. She handstitched 12 of the 16 squares before losing steam and handed it over to me to finish, quilt and bind. I think it looks pretty spiffy! The collage is just a little fun thing she put together using a bunch of the left over selvedge scraps which I kept, thinking they might be useful for something someday….
27th October 2008
We had such a perfect, gentle weekend. It’s always hard waking on a Monday and feeling that wrench as the realisation of the upcoming rush-to-get-out-the door kicks in. This morning we woke late and got to school just before the second bell but we somehow managed to keep things cheerful.
This is the list on the door inside one of the kitchen cupboards which Amelia refers to almost every day when getting ready and packing her bag for school. She kicks around all morning; drawing, playing the piano, constructing elaborate plans for tree houses or performances, gazing into the plastic container where her pill bugs live, slowly getting dressed in unbelievably drawn-out stages while all the time chat chat chatting. Thankfully, when we hit the urgent, last minute race to get away, there is this list for making life easier. As Meg (who is an old friend and author of my new favourite blog) wrote, the world can be divided into those who keep lists, and those who don’t. Amelia has most definitely inherited my keen love of all things list-like.
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Speaking of kids – Mixtape – The Kids Issue is now available for preorder at the Mixtape online shop. I did the cover illustration and if the content is at all like that of the previous issues, it will be a rad read.
19th March 2008
On my desk on a Wednesday has rolled around quickly again.
Cute huh? Amelia did this in an art class for toddlers back in the day. While the finished product is lovely I don’t condone the practice — It was one of those classes where the lovely teacher sat at the head of the table and said “Ok now everyone take a sticker and stick it on the face, and there’s an eye! Now take another sticker and stick it on the other side of the face and there’s the other eye! Now let’s all add some wool for hair!” Etc. Craft by numbers really. Amelia can take complete credit for the colour choices though — love the red hair with the jaunty maroon feather. We lasted in that class another two sessions then I decided it was not for us and we stayed at home and made messes with glue on our own time. Amelia still, to this day, will occasionally ask “when can we go back to the art class mum? I loved that class!” — so there you go. Perhaps we should have stuck it out.
I am over this sick thing. Both girls slept through the night last night and that is a rare feat indeed but unfortunately I woke myself up coughing and hacking around 3 and so it was completely wasted. I’m off to the doctor’s this evening so perhaps that will put an end to all this complaining on my blog. Tomorrow I promise something joyful!
