Sunday morning cuppa. (Milo, for the curious. Best with honey.)
Mmmm… Donut.
Fooled? No? Look closer:
Niamh followed her own tradition of absconding with the crafty goodness:
Don’t worry, I saved her before she managed to stick the needle in her mouth 
PS. Should you feel the need to make your own delicious pincushion/kiddie playfood - mine is based on the Craftster tutorial found here. Enjoy!
November 05 2007 | Kid Crafts and Other Craft and Sewing | 4 Comments »
Until a few days ago, we had in our house this scary looking thing:
(I refer to the one on the right, not either of the others, though the one in the middle scares me a little too!)
That weird koala-headed thing is a doll stroller from years back - best guess is it belonged to my sister. The frame is still in good shape, however the cover has never fitted well, and, though I don’t think you can make it out clearly here, has been held together with string, rubber-bands, a nappy-pin and a big wad of blutac. When Finn started trundling his teddies around in it a couple of years back, I promised I would try and make a new cover. So… now you see how bad my procrastination can really be! 
When Niamh started getting interested in Baby Jack (Scary Doll), I idly thought of buying a new stroller. A quick trip through Toy Kingdom assured me that I could have a new dolly pusher, as long as I wanted it in, lets see… pink, pink, or, oh yes… PINK! Anyway, I bit the bullet and decided it couldn’t possibly be that difficult to sew a new cover, after all. Oh yes, and some bright spark decided it might be fun to have a reversible cover, what’s more. (That would be me. D’oh.)
Some time and many curse words later, after staying up until midnight on Monday finishing the thing… and then finishing it some more on Tuesday while Niamh was napping… aaaand then finally finishing it some more after picking Finn up from pre-school, we have one super-dooper swanky new cover (and one cute boy who isn’t too cool to be photographed with his teddybear):
(yes, I know. It’s pink. Oh well.)
But wait, that’s not all:
Ta da! It’s also green and blue. Hooray! (See - I’m not really anti-pink, I’m just pro-choice 
)
I tried to convince Niamh to take it for a test drive, but she decided to go with a mechanical inspection instead. That’s my girl!
October 19 2007 | Family and Other Craft and Sewing and The Kids | 7 Comments »
The examination of a freesia she picked moments earlier from our front lawn. (Yes, lawn - they’ve gone wild, can’t get rid of them… thinking of just strewing more seed around so that it looks purposeful!)
This is my favourite of the bibs I’ve made for Niamh - the Spotlight lady astutely observed ‘you must be a green person’. Well, yes, yes I am. I love this little apple print, I should go back and buy more for a summer dress. There was rotary cutting and piecing involved with this bib… d’you think I’m getting ever more closer to that ‘quilt within’?
Before I made the sewing machine give up its place at the kitchen table (having no permanent sewing spot is a bit of a bummer), I made a half dozen more bibs - a couple for a friend of ours and more for Niamh. She came out yesterday morning to discover the pile, and was most distraught when she couldn’t wear one immediately - I hadn’t hammered in the press studs the night previously for fear of waking the kids. Life couldn’t continue until I banged in a press stud and popped it on her - I think we had six changes of bib yesterday, the little fashion fiend!
October 03 2007 | Family and Other Craft and Sewing and The Kids | 5 Comments »
I’m an Auntie! Well, a step-Auntie if you want to be a pedant, but I don’t. My sister Imogen had her first baby in the wee hours of this morning. A beautiful baby girl, Lilly Jessica 
Niamh and I made the four-hour round trip to see her this afternoon. Mog looked thoroughly exhausted (bub was born by c-section after a long and arduous labour), but I’m sure she’ll be fine, and Lilly was just lovely. Niamh was well behaved and even let me have a few baby snuggles.
I spent last night making a few more bibs - three for Lilly (cute gender neutral ones, since I still didn’t know which variety of baby she would be at that point), and another for Niamh. (Marita and Karen, I will definitely try and get you an action shot, soon. Niamh was being a most uncooperative model the other day, and courtesy of all the dribble, all the bibs are currently in the washing pile!)
And now… I’m exhausted myself. I’m off in search of a better night’s sleep than last night, then tomorrow I’m off to Tannia’s to chill out for a little while.
September 29 2007 | Family and Other Craft and Sewing | 4 Comments »
Yup. Still here, still kicking. Still stitching (but shhh, it’s a secret, can’t tell yet), and today, making bibs.
This post might have been titled ‘5-minute bibs’, had I not tried to sew while my ‘helpers’ were around. I didn’t think ‘45-minute bibs’ was quite so catchy. Honestly… who tries to sew with a 4 year old and a toddler in the house and awake?!
I’ve been meaning to get around to making some bibs for Niamh since forever, as she is quite seriously the drooliest baby ever to walk the Earth. Really.
There have been bibs popping up in some of my favourite blogs lately, too. So when the machine got dragged out to finish off my exchange piece today, I pulled out a few cute cotton prints and some towelling, traced an existing bib of Niamh’s as a pattern, and (some time later) voila! - three cute new bibs. Niamh approves. Terrible photo though - sorry!
September 27 2007 | Other Craft and Sewing | 4 Comments »
Nope, I haven’t ‘gone over to the dark side’ 
Not just yet, anyway. You know how people say everyone has a novel in them? Well, I don’t think I have a novel in me, but I do think I might have a quilt in me… somewhere. When and how it will choose to emerge, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, that clue was a bit deceptive. I only used one of those fabrics in this project. I have plans for some of the others, and still more I bought ‘just because they’re pretty’. I have wanted to start building a bit of a craft fabric stash for a while, to entice me back into sewing.
And here she is. Out among the garlic chives and aubergines, enjoying the sunshine, showing off her candy pink Mary Janes - my weekend happy dance: Ms Sara Bear. (Or Sara Beara if, like Finn, you prefer.)
The pattern is from the Put Together Book #1 (Kitty, Bunny & Bear) by the very clever Hillary Lang at Wee Wonderfuls. I’m pretty happy with how she turned out, though I didn’t get a nice curve on her ears (Finn, being the very literal boy he is, wanted to call her ‘Square-Ears Bear’!) The shoes are removable, and a good thing too, else Niamh would have chewed them off by now. She (Niamh) isn’t much into soft toys as comfort items, but she does seem to think Sara Bear is a pretty good plaything, so I think I have a winner 
February 20 2007 | Other Craft and Sewing and The Kids | 9 Comments »