sugarlemon

Hoppy Easter

Posted on April 6, 2010 | 2 comments

I hope everybunny had a hoppy easter!

(!!!Sorry!!! Not sure what came over me there!!!)

We had a lovely and far-too-chocolate-filled weekend at my father-in-law’s place in central Victoria. The kids got to run riot with the cousin they don’t see enough of, and I got bit more granny-squaring in, despite the (was it slightly derisive?) commentary from uncles-in-law. Pfft to them, I say. Also, there might have been a little bitty trip to the Bendigo Woollen Mills and Bendigo Spotlight somewhere in there… can’t remember… crafty amnesia has befallen me. (What stash diet?!)

Bunny finger-puppet project from the purl bee. A great little project for the budding crafter: Finn stitched his own, I just added the face and tail for him.

2 Comments

Posted in Family, Sewing, The Kids, Yarncraft

Tagged crafting with kids, easter craft, finger puppet

My Creative Space

Posted on April 1, 2010 | 13 comments

Happy April! Hard to believe it is already. My head is still stuck somewhere back in January, I think.

Not sure if I’m going to get very creative today. Depends whether I can banish this headache and get my family packed to go away tomorrow morning.

So here’s one I prepared earlier. As in, yesterday. That’s probably cheating or something isn’t it? Well tough!

My yesterday looked like this:

With a little of this:

And finally, a photoshoot in amongst the basil and marigolds:

This is a little sundress (or perhaps nightie? It looks like a sweet little nightie to me), adapted from a pattern for regular child-sized people (Ottobre 1/2009). I like how it turned out, despite the efforts of craft-room gremlins, who took off with the turquoise bias binding I am sure I own. I’m planning to rework this pattern a bit to see if I can make it fit better on top – amateur improv. pattern drafting on a really tiny scale, fun fun!

Take a tour around creative blogland today, via Kirsty’s place. And have a very happy Easter!

13 Comments

Posted in General Ramblings

Crazy Haired Crazy Boy

Posted on March 31, 2010 | 5 comments

The final day of Term 1 was Crazy Hair Day at school. Can you tell? Students wore riotous ‘do’s or had their heads shaved at school (!) in order to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis Victoria and the Leukaemia Foundation.

(For this do, I unleashed an entire can of green hairspray onto Finn’s head. We did it in the shower. While I was out taking this photograph, Rohan crawled in the shower and ended up with green hands and feet. Fun times!)

Here’s a bonus shot I snapped of the boy and some of his current reading material. He’s working his way through all of my web programming texts – the subject of the day was Javascript 🙂

5 Comments

Posted in General Ramblings

My Creative Space

Posted on March 25, 2010 | 8 comments

My creative space has Grannies in it. I was packing up my Grannies. They were stacked so prettily. Then everything went awol…

Sigh. It is the end of a long week. A week in which those toes learned to step. And then to walk. And (before that perhaps?) to climb to lofty heights. There have been near misses (but Facebook friends will have noticed that I stopped mid-near-miss to get a photograph!) It has been a week of solo-parenting. Which I will never learn to love, but which I am learning to navigate more smoothly. It will be a welcome relief when Dermot gets in the door tonight. Even more welcome if he gets here in time for me to rush off to tonight’s Craft Bonanza (or at least a little bit of it.) See you there?

I’m rejoining Kirsty’s My Creative Space meme. See more spaces over at her place.

8 Comments

Posted in The Kids, Yarncraft

Tagged crochet, granny squares, Memes, my creative space

Skirts, skirts, skirts

Posted on March 23, 2010 | 3 comments

So as Debby called to my attention, there are things I have made to post. Hooray!

I’ve been in a fug of not-enough-sleep for so long that my crafty groove was in danger of disappearing completely, but since the year turned, little by little I’ve been clawing it back. On one particular day lately, I was just desperate to be doing something other than cleaning the house (which really needed doing.). So Niamh and I turned up the ABBA music, she danced, and I put together this simple little skirt. And then she put it on and danced some more. It’s the Dancing Queen skirt! And the next day, Molly needed one to match!

The main fabric is from the ‘Natural Effects’ line by Michele D’Amore. I love this particular fabric, it’s striped with three different patterns, so the end result looks more interesting than just a rectangle of fabric with an elastic casing (which is what it is!) Also, I bound the hem with some Denyse Schmidt ‘Flea Market Fancy’ (the only piece I’ve ever owned. How crazy are people for this fabric line?!) Result? Super cute:

Several days later, (actually nights… I left it until late late late one night to work on tulle for the first time. Coz I’m smart like that.) I put together this sparkly concoction for Niamh’s dance classes. Each Thursday Niamh goes to a dance class especially for tinies. It is very cute, but it oversteps my tolerance for PINK! just that little bit. Since there’s not really a dress code (low-stress dance classes = good), I figured I could make something which fitted in with Niamh’s requirements of pretty and sparkly, without it being PINK!

Yeah, she likes it! Naturally, Molly had to get in on this action too (and please notice uber-cool tie-dye t-shirt, which I made years ago for one of Finn’s bears):

PS. Photos of the booties I made for Rohan (which Debby also mentioned) will be forthcoming. Just as soon as I, um… locate the other one!

PPS. There is a disagreement between my significant other and I as to whether my use of the word “fug” in this post was legitimate or not. Dermot thinks it’s not. Mum agrees with me (I probably learned it from her!). What say you? I present to you this meaning – don’t you think that not having slept properly for a year would lead to a “stuffy or malodorous state” within one’s brain?! I’m standing by it, anyway! (Besides, I like to mention the fact that I haven’t slept for A YEAR to him as frequently as possible! It’s a guilt thing 🙂 )

3 Comments

Posted in Kid Crafts, Sewing

Tagged Bamboletta, sewing for children, sewing for dolls

Uh… Happy New Year?

Posted on March 18, 2010 | 12 comments

(No, I suppose I can’t really get away with that in March, can I?)

So the wee boy recently raced past the 11-month post, which means I have been a non-blogger for four months people. Four! I think that may be my longest break yet, and people are starting to, you know, mention it. (Ok, namely Mum, but still…)

Also, I described myself to someone the other day as an ‘ex-blogger’, and then I wondered to myself whether the situation was really irreparable… so here we are, my blog and I – we’re entering into a trial reconciliation. No commitment, mind. We’re just casual friends. 🙂

In honour of it being my first post in 2010, how about some pics of a few firsts that have happened around these parts lately?

First day of Year Two:

First day of Pre-school:

First swimming class:

First (ever) pavlova:

(This was so, so very good. It disappeared very rapidly. I baked another a week later for Mum’s birthday, and that one didn’t even hang around for a photograph! Pavs are definitely my new go-to fancy dessert. Yum)

[Left] First two-wheeler (technically a four-wheeler right now, I suppose); [Right] Finally getting rid of those training wheels, hoorah!

First glimpse at Melbourne’s baby:

(And so worth standing in line for, even though I only have crappy pics. Better ones at that link above. She’s since been named Mali, which is Thai for jasmine, apparently.)

Life. It’s pootling along just the way it always does, blog or no blog. Nice to be back 🙂

12 Comments

Posted in Baking, Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

Grandma Eye Candy

Posted on November 12, 2009 | 10 comments

This little bloke turned a whole seven months yesterday. And (knock-on-wood) we seem to be turning a pretty big corner in the sleep department… just like that. I have swaddled all my babies in the early months, the boys especially both had really strong startle reflexes that jolted them awake frequently. On Monday night, I decided it was just too damn hot for a wrap of any kind, even my lightest muslin wraps would have had the babe sweltering, so I took a chance and put him to bed without wrapping. And he slept through! Shout it from the rooftops! I’m close to being a proper human being again. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were pretty decent too – he had 4am wakeups both nights, but one wakeup is perfectly civilised really, compared to recent weeks.

(It truly has been stinking hot this week in Melbourne, for November anyway. This was the only way to sleep yesterday. Bonus points here for supercute handmade bunny cuddles! Minus points though for visible sweat/drool marks… I reheeally need to change those cot sheets.)

I’m not silly enough to believe it will be all fantastic from here on, but here’s hoping we’re on the way out of the doldrums.

Oh, and we’re getting better at this sitting up thing, too. And on the verge of proper crawling. Yea verily, all hell is about to break loose. Again.

10 Comments

Posted in Family, The Kids

Tagged baby milestones, sleep deprivation

November 11

Posted on November 11, 2009 | 3 comments

Eleven-eleven. It’s a memorable day, for more than one reason. (Not least the hanging of Ned Kelly or the sacking of the Whitlam Government)

Nine years ago, it was a memorable day for us.

We were married beneath a maypole in the Kooyoora State Park (which gives this post its second bushranger reference!). Until the day, none of our guests knew the actual location of the ceremony. (Technically, nor did we, for several reasons, but the most important of which was, we had no rain plan(!), and the morning of November 11 brought an absolute downpour.)

Good fortune prevailed, however. At least as far as the weather. If you ask me to tell the story of our wedding photographs, I might still cry.

Thankfully, memories and lifetimes are not all about the pictorial evidence.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

3 Comments

Posted in Family

Tagged wedding anniversary

Feeling Flat

Posted on October 22, 2009 | 8 comments

So I fell off those there Blogtoberfest rails a little bit, yes? It would be lazy of me just to write this post all over again, but there you have it. Same old same old. Lack of sleep begets grumpiness begets ratbaggy kids begets grumpiness begets… no damn crafting of any kind around these parts (begets grumpiness…)

I will not dwell. I will be back…

{Artwork credit: Feeling Flat by Niamh. Awesome.}

Blogtoberfest Day, uh… 22… I think.

8 Comments

Posted in Family, The Kids

Blogtoberfest Day 14

Posted on October 14, 2009 | 2 comments

My big boy yesterday, at his first ever piano recital*! He played beautifully, and I’m so glad he made it. Piano, or more accurately, the practice of, has been a huge point of conflict for us this year. Huge. We have recently hit upon a new system of ~~bribery~~ motivation, though, which is (so far) easing the way a bit. It would be nice if he chooses to keep playing.

*I see you wondering about that oh-so-stylish mosaic artwork, yes I do! Our school is mid-renovation, and the piano was parked in front of a huge pile o’ junk. Please excuse my terrible attempt at photoshopping the background. I do think they could have moved the piano over just a bit!

Keeping warm on the couch tonight under my new birthday blankie from Creswick woollen mills. It’s Alpaca wool, very snuggly. We’ve been catching up on Heart & Soul, which is a lovely show… the thinking man’s Glee perhaps? (but I like Glee too!) And then the last episode of United States of Tara (sob!) Can’t wait for the next season already!

Hoppy Easter

My Creative Space

Crazy Haired Crazy Boy

My Creative Space

Skirts, skirts, skirts

Uh… Happy New Year?

Grandma Eye Candy

November 11

Feeling Flat

Blogtoberfest Day 14

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