inner pickle

capping

 

After my less than stirling first effort in making a baby's cap, freestyle, I thought I'd go again.

Although I promised myself I'd use a pattern this time (it seemed sensible), I.. er.. didn't, and it didn't actually work out too badly. 

 

 

A bit unnecessary? Ah maybe. Whatever. Tilly and Henry loved it. And she wore it!

 

She checked the tanks with Grandpa.

 

Yep, this one's working. 

 

We watched for whales heading south. Found two, a hundred metres off shore. 

 

There's no being downhearted if you are around a baby in a red cap. Really, it's like seratonin in a spare fat quarter. One rectangle sewn to a semi circle. Make some ties. I highly recommend it. 

Hope you're having a joyful start to your week. And if you're not, is this helping even just a little bit?

 

xxx

weekendiness

Moss stitch!

Hope you're fitting in something you want to do this weekend too. 

xxx

looking up

Well the BEST news of the week has to be that I found a (traumatised) Isa Brown hiding deep in an enormous bramble bush yesterday. She was very stuck. I put on gloves and with a saw and an axe (and a baby in a backpack!) I got her out. Hooray!

And in other spectacular news at exactly 2.45pm today my last missing Isa Brown wandered home. Who knows where she's been. She looked hungry. 

Which means my dog actually only killed the two that I found. GOOD news, hey?! (It's all relative.)

In other excellent news, I made the Easy Slice again. 

I made it for a gathering of kids, so I left out the nuts. And used Nice biscuits as instructed. Also put the butter in the bottom of the pan as suggested. Basically followed the recipe. I know. MIRACLE. And who knew, it really works. 

 

 

Oh my goodness this is a dangerous slice. 

 

It takes precisely five minutes to make and is pathologically more-ish. I in no way take responsibilty for your inability to give the slice away. 

So after delivering this (much improved) version of the slice and finally finding my kitchen bench for the first time this week under dishes and debris, Ivy had a nap and I found myself unrequired. Tilly at preschool. Henry at a kids holiday program at church. How about that then. 

So instead of folding washing or cleaning the bathroom or cooking dinner ahead of time or anything sensible, I took a favourite baby shirt and cut out a pattern.

 

 

And after cutting up one old baby wrap, we have this:

 

 

No it doesn't really fit. 

I'm not really a very good sewer, and I don't know what made me think freestyle was the way to go. 

 

Before I cut up the next baby wrap I might find a pattern.

 

It was such a glorious wrap though, as I was talking on the phone to my Mum I cut up all the remnants into "rags" - remember those?

 

Did your Mum ever do this to your hair to give you curls?

 

And low and behold, it doesn't fit the baby but it fits the four year old. Who was formerly known as Tilly but has been instructing everyone this week to call her Charlie. No, no reason.

 

She immediately declared she was the rainbow fairy.

Which she is. That marvellous Charlie. 

 

And did I ever precisely suggest you give the whole entire slice away?

That little end-y bit in the fridge will improve anyone's day. 

Things are looking up.

xxx

a simple little thing

Well hello!

For anyone who got in and made yesterday's lemon slice (or who may have printed off the recipe already) PLEASE NOTE there were two critical typos. First, the number of eggs. Second, the volume of flour. Fixed now. These things discovered after three (so far) readers emailed me after the first version of the slice failed. 

I'm really very sorry! And I promise to be super diligent about checking recipes in the future. Truly. I don't want you to mistrust my recipes, mostly they are quadrupled tested and meticulously checked. I'll be more diligent from now on.

And that's enough about that. 

I'm trying to keep things simple, right now. Inflate the lungs. Take an easy path. Enjoy small things. 

Like baby wraps on the line. Ready to be repurposed. Baby shirts?

Like pigs in mud.

Hilarious curly tails.

 

The discovery of two of the three missing hens roosting in next door's hen house. Happy chooks. 

 

Watching the goslings double in size from day to day. 

 

And look back there! Remember the grey goose who nested at our place? Her chicks have hatched!

 

It's an awesome Big Love Mormon goose moment over here. Go, gander.

 

And a finished much-asked-for headscarf. Which took about fifteen minutes to make, without exaggeration. (With a baby in the backpack, oh yes!) It's a triangle, edges folded twice and pressed, and a zigzag stich. For a happy precious four year old who has been awesome with her poorly wee sister and gentle and lovely with her under-the-weather older brother.                           

                    

            

                   

                   

                 

Simple. 

            

                        

xxx

creative space?

 

The problem with my creative space is that it is shared. 

 

 

I don't even mean with small people, although it is, and precious papers run the risk of being swiped off the desk and adapted into craft, and if I ever make the mistake of leaving pins at desk-height, well...

My creative space is right alongside my workspace. I mean that I have one long desk with a computer at one end and a sewing machine at the other. And right now, every time I sit down, I may look longingly at the machine, but it's the computer that gets the attention.

I'm in (I hope) the final month before launch of this project mentioned earlier, and will be sharing with you very soon! It's taking up most of my creative space.

Along with a major project, there are a few small projects on the go:

 

Bunting intended for Ivy's birthday which might be made in time for Henry's. Shame it's really not very boy-like. Ah, whatever. 

 

 

Kids' paintings which are about to be made into something else. Watch this space! Although probably not that closely. I'm not known for my promptness.

And in other creative news:

 

Our neighbours are away and we've been looking after all their animals for a few weeks. We'd avoided telling them that we thought one of their chickens had been taken by the fox, and then it reappeared today with some new additions!

Great excitement all around. 

We still had the whole set up from the last chickens in the garage, so Adam took them up to get set up, and unfortunately two excited small people let the mother hen out. And she vanished, we assume back to wherever her secret nest is and possibly to more hatching chicks? Adam and another neighbour looked and looked and we couldn't find her. So rather than leave the chickens in the garage in the cold (DAMN it's cold here right now - and the lamp that had been set up in the garage isn't working) they are in a box in front of our fire and we are hoping for the best. 

(Contrary to this photo they are covered, for the record.)

cheep cheep cheep

Many more inspiring creative spaces over here. 

Hope you are having a lovely week, lovely folk!

xxx

uncool

I am so nine yards of uncool.

I know some cool people. I'm related to some of them. Unfortunately I just never seem to get the idea.

I cottoned onto knitting early. That's now very cool, not so much when I was 13. 

There was always an unfinished scarf or two hanging about in my uncool room. (Too many medieval genealogies, not enough Cure posters.)

I also, as my sisters love to remind me, spent a whole winter one year wearing a nose-warmer I knitted myself. A square of knit, with a band behind my head. I thought it was genius.

In my defence, I had the Sunday morning milking shift and it was damn cold out there. 

I apparently made them for the whole family. 

No there is no photographic evidence. 

Onto my next less than cool knitting project...

Hello, handwarmer. 

I love these. No pattern. Knitted in a rectangle, stocking stitch, and sewn up with a hole left for the thumb. Utterly basic. No funky organic fabulous yarn, no circular needle, no cool double pointed needles and no, they're not even the same length, I am THAT good.

 

And there's more. I could kid myself these were un-useful socks repurposed, but they didn't even have a hole. I randomly chopped the toes off and hemmed them and made more wrist warmers. Because I liked the colour. And because when it's cold and you have kinda achy hands, nothing beats a bit of a wrist warmer that used to be a nice purple sock to warm things up. 

All photos and unpublishable commentary about my marvellous hand-wear today care of Adman. 

I'm not saying you're not cool, you know, but the people I like most usually have a good solid streak of uncool. Sometimes it's hard to find under all that cool, but I know it's there. 

Uncool is best shared. Truely daggy demands witness. Please share.

Don't leave me hanging out there with my nose-warmer, I beg you.

xxx

necking

It's all about necks, down here, in this small sheltered spot out of the wind. 

Holy crapola it's cold. And windy. 

Ever since I accidentally made a cowl, I've become a bit of a fan. They're very practical for people who don't like trailing things around their necks that might dunk in the soup or get caught in the fence.

So I knitted one (deliberately) for Henry. 

 

It turned out surprisingly medieval, which thrilled me to pieces. 

There was no pattern, it was kind of, cast on twenty five stitches, knit every row, cast off. And this time I didn't ever need to you-tube how to cast off!

It did take a while though. I started it in the car on the drive to Armidale at Easter. It came with me to hospital...

 

... and then once it was finished, sat around for ages waiting to be sewn up. 

I seriously don't know how these crafters whip up a whole cardigan in a week. Beyond me. 

 

He likes it, it's a little bit scratchy, he says, but the colour's good. Would've preferred grey. 

Note to self. 

 

He says it's very comfortable. 

 

And that it works well as a hat. 

Better than some of my previous efforts. 

 

Right-o, enough with the paparazzi business, lady.

And so, given I've MASTERED knitting, I decided to try something new! Crochet! 

Just when I thought this town couldn't get any better, I was invited to join a weekly evening craft group. Who totally rock. And it was here that two lovely friends taught me how to crochet!

My first effort at a square swatch was spectacular. 

 I took it back to show Vanessa, who reminded me about adding a chain stitch when you turn it over. Oh yeah. The old chain stitch. 

It turns out that crochet is heaps of fun and much faster to work up than knitting. Which is good. Because it's WINDY here (did I mention that?) and I need a neck covering. 

At some stage soon will gather up my courage an knit an entire arm of a sweater. 

After I've put another log on the fire. 

Hope you're warm where ever you are. Neck, most of all. 

xxx

maybe I should stick to cooking

 

I recently sent off a package to Germany. It's been received, so I can tell you what was in it. 

I have a beloved sister and two nieces who had birthdays last December that I set about making gifts for. So they're not very late at all.

The girls may have also not quite received their Christmas presents on time. Spectacular Auntie, I am. 

Here's what I finally got off to them:

A gumnut beanie for my unbelievably adorable two year old niece, Rose.

I didn't follow a pattern, incredible that it worked out at all really. I was supremely unconfident that it would not turn out a lot like this one, a particularly stellar example of my knitting prowess. But I cast off (had to look up youtube as I had a total mental blank about binding off) and it looked like it'd fit a smallie nicely. Happy days. 

 

A lazy days skirt, (a free pattern from Oliver + S). That's the end of my birdy stash. Hopefully Rose likes it as much as I do.

 

 

For Tilly's intensely adored Miss Georgia, 4, a skirt in corduroy, following the lazy days principles. With a pocket for treasures. 

There is a visit scheduled for later this year and Tilly is insisting on a full matching wardrobe for her and Georgia. I better get started.

 

Also for Georgia, another of these dresses, Simplicity 2377. Didn't work so well in lawn, for reference. Sits much more nicely in 100% cotton. 

 

It was right about now that I turned around to find a cow right behind me (see Monday's post.)

 

And for my beloved Naomi, a scarf.

I bought this gorgeous wool at Vinnies for 50c. Two balls.  

 

It knitted up quickly and beautifully, gorgeous to knit with. 

'Cept it was only about half a metre in length. Ran out of wool. Not a scarf.

I stitched it up and decided it was a cowl. (I looked it up, it's a word. And a thing.)

 

Modelled here. Cowl. Going to be big in Germany this year. Or maybe next year...

...given they've just finished winter.

Christmas handmades in April.

That's gotta be a record.

xxx

my creative space...

... is squished into the dark recesses of late-at-night this week! 

Lots of beginnings. 

A small pile of tantalizing fabric waiting to be another peasant shirt.

A row or two just begun, waiting for any car trip when I'm not the driver...

There's a little girl's dress sitting pinned, waiting...

and there appears to be a baby in my knitting. 

Actually, the only creative thing finished in the house today was this:

Nice work, Tilly.

There is, however, always a scone. 

 

Even if the day was a bit of a shamozzle and I sewed not one seam I hoped to, and we made the critical, critical error of taking three small children grocery shopping at 5pm (what are we? rookies?) and it was takeaway Thai for dinner, the day is not unsuccessful when there are scones.

And small green boxes for putting shell collections in.

Pop over to Kootoyoo for lots of truly amazing creative spaces!!

 

Never Fail Scone Recipe

Ingredients:

3 cups self-raising flour

1 tbsp sugar

80 g butter

1 cup milk

Method:

Mix flour and sugar and rub in butter. Stir in the milk. Knead a bit and then cut (with scone cutter if you have one) into rounds. Dust tops with flour. Cook on 210°C for 15-20 mins or until golden. 

xxx

the shirt/dress on her back

I recently made a dress for Tilly. It was a kooky pattern I borrowed from my friend Ali, a design by Denise Knapp of Whimsy Couture which was basically measurements and cut outs... although I'm not really a good enough sewer to cope without a proper pattern!

 

When I'd finished it though, it was so darn cute, I tried it on. 

 

(No, I do not iron.)

This is not actually it. This is the second one I made with a slightly bigger neck and armholes. However, as I'm neither a particularly good sewer OR good at maths, this one worked out pretty much the same size as the dress. Which is a little small under the arms. 

What the heck, I really like it. It's cheerful. It's not black or grey. It's my favourite birdy fabric of all time. 

 

I discussed with Tilly my deep deep fear of mother/daughter matchy matchy and how I thought we should send her version of the dress/shirt to her friend Emily as a late birthday present and I would make her one out of different fabric. 

She agreed cheerfully, she thought Em would love the dress, and how about she just put it on for a minute and we take a photo of matchy matchy just for fun. 

 

Completely coincidentally, my friend Jo has been making peasant blouses too. 

'Cept hers looks like they'd actually fit.

So I am now off to buy Simplicity pattern 3835. 

And to make another dress for Tilly.

 

xxx