Making…

Posted on August 5, 2009 | 4 comments

Bunting on Monday…

Bunting
Project overseen and fabrics chosen by Niamh, purchased in the recent GJ’s fabric sale – to which every craft blogger in the north seems to have been!

Cracked my first Nicole Mallalieu pattern on Tuesday…

Purse01a

Purse01b
Are you sick of this fabric yet? Not I! This is Nikki’s 90mm coin purse pattern, and not terribly tricky… though I must admit it’s not quite finished – I haven’t tackled the crimping/squishing of the metal frame yet, as there’s nothing resembling a cork coaster in the house. Think I’ll be making more of these 🙂

Revisiting “Smartie Cookies” on Wednesday…
SmartieCookies

I had some helpful comments back on this post after we used M&Ms on the last batch of these. This time we used Smarties. Hardly any of these cracked, which is good, but some of the (all-natural, as Marita pointed out) colours were altered in cooking – the green ones turned yellow, the blues went quite pale, and some of the others were dulled as well. They look like they’re out of a 70’s cookbook! Oh well. Tasty nonetheless. I think our playgroupers appreciated them.

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Posted in Baking, Other Craft, Sewing

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My Creative Space

Posted on July 30, 2009 | 13 comments

Creative space July 30.JPG

As usual, not much crafting going on here. I have been working on the knitting, but since I’m getting close to a happy dance* on that, I’m not going to show it to you today.

As for my sewing machine, the most action it’s seen lately is a quick bit of repair work on some cloth nappies (actually, not so quick, and man oh man is that Bum Genius elastic dodgy – if anyone plans to buy any, check whether they’ve changed the elastic since I bought ours – which were version 2.0, I think. If you have no idea what I’m on about, ignore!) Oh, and I also whipped out the machine to run up a quick wheat bag – thanks to a blocked milk duct (ow ow ow ow ow) the other day. Thirty-three months of breastfeeding, and this is the first one I’ve ever had (total for 3 kids, not all at once!). Here’s hoping for no repeats.

But! While I didn’t get up to much creative today, I did find myself with two sleeping children. Amazing! I baked blueberry muffins to celebrate (had been planning to do this with Niamh, but I do prefer to bake alone anyway)… then parked my bum on the beanbag for a little while to enjoy the silence and a few new books I’ve picked up lately.

And now they’re both awake, and one is drooling on my laptop (like the poor computer doesn’t have enough problems!), and school pickup is imminent! Cruise on over to Kirsty’s for some more spaces 🙂

*Happy dance = finished project. I think this one might belong to the cross-stitchers, yes? Or is it an all round crafty term? Anyway… now you know!

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Posted in Baking, Reading

My Creative Space

Posted on July 23, 2009 | 19 comments

…has a glue gun in it this week. Any crafting involving a hot glue gun is awesome, if you ask me 🙂

Creative Space July 23

Niamh is the queen of cheesy grins at the moment. Another cheesy grin for the camera darling?

Niamh July 23

There we go.

We’ve been making peg-dolls today (don’t worry, I was at the helm of the glue gun). Here’s us: Niamh on the left, I in the middle, and Rohan on the right:

Peg Dolls July 23

Rohan watched (in another lovely hand-knit by my mum). He wasn’t all that excited by peg dolls, to be honest.

Rohan July 23

(I’m pretty sure he’s storing extra food in those cheeks for later!)

More creative spaces to be found over at Kirsty’s place

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Posted in Family, Kid Crafts, Other Craft, The Kids

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Siblingness

Posted on July 14, 2009 | 9 comments

AuntieC

This is my little sister. This photograph was taken not long after she arrived off the red-eye flight from Perth – she met Rohan for the first time on collapsing into bed with he and I for a brief shut-eye before the other two woke up and jumped all over her. (All that to explain why they all look like such ragamuffins – though honestly my kids always look like ragamuffins. Anyone know how I can get Finn to stop chewing on his damn necklines?!)

There are three years and eight months between she and I. Almost the same gap as between Finn and Niamh. When we were kids, we fought like demons about everything. I seem to remember getting in trouble a lot for things that she did, though I’m sure there were times when the opposite was true. There have been some pretty dreadful arguments even now we’re (supposedly) adults. The worst time was when we attempted to share a house together. It’s probably lucky Dermot was around or we may not have come out of that one intact. Our relationship remains rollercoaster-like, but we do (mostly!) love each other. My kids adore her, and I love that. Living on opposite sides of the country is possibly a good thing though :giggle:

I’m also living on the other side of the experience now… Finn and Niamh are as bad as my sister and I were. Maybe worse? There are times of wonderful playing-togetherness, but it tends to fall apart in the end, because Finn likes to set rules and then police them, whereas Niamh likes to set different tules and then completely and utterly ignore all of the rules!

Since Rohan was born there has been a subtle positive shift in the brother-sister dynamics – there is a little bit more of an ‘us and him’ feeling. But I wonder how that’s going to all play out once he’s a bit older and wanting to join in with the big kids.

I’m experiencing sudden empathy for my mother, and wondering how I can help these two grow into a better relationship. Parts of the school break were hard. I never wanted to be that parent who breathed a huge sigh of relief when term started, but I have to admit, yesterday I did just that. We all seem to do better when these two spend a significant part of the day apart from each other.

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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My Creative Space

Posted on July 9, 2009 | 13 comments

The knitting. Also Mixtape. Chucked on the passenger seat of the car in the vain hope that kids might all fall asleep, post Museum-visit, and I might sneak in a row or three. Ha!
Creative Space July 9

But look. The knitting… it grows!

I’m enjoying the knitting, actually. I’ve even knitted in public(!) and I don’t think I attracted a single strange look. The friend I was with even assumed I actually knew what I was doing(!) I’m quite pleased, and fairly convinced I’ll see it through to the end. Meanwhile, what unfinished quilt?! La la la, I can’t hear you :giggle:

Museum Kids

We did have a nice morning, despite the very busy-ness of the Museum. We met up with Marita and her gorgeous girls. Finn and Niamh were the best behaved they’ve been all holidays. Keeping them both within my sight while tending to a very wiiiide-awake-but-grumpy-and-will-not-bloody-go-to-sleep baby was a wee bit of a challenge though. I realised it was the first time I’d attempted such an outing with three children. And I’m still intact, hurrah!

Museum Babe

More spaces over at Kirsty’s place.

13 Comments

Posted in Family, Memes, Other Craft, The Kids, Yarncraft

My Slightly Creative Space

Posted on July 2, 2009 | 6 comments

Kirsty is taking a break, but I’ll show a bit of my Thursday creativity anyway… since there is some to show this week 🙂
CreativeSpaceJuly2-1

Could that be? Yes, I am actually knitting something! A non-scarf something 😮 Well, I’m trying, anyway. Knitting has never really been my thing, but I think I can do this. Whether I can finish before Rohan outgrows it is another matter entirely.

By the way, any errors you think you see are definitely intentional. I’m trying to embrace imperfection, otherwise it will never be done!

Finn thought you might like to see a bit of his creative space too:
CreativeSpaceJuly2-2

Foil and toothpicks occupied them for, oh, at least 10 whole minutes. That only left the remaining many, many, many, many hours of today to fill in. Such a looong day. I’m trying to love the school holidays, I am, but it’s hard work when the weather and baby are both miserable 😥

(We did eventually get around to using those M&Ms on top of cookies; which reminds me, has anyone else done this and had the M&Ms crack in the oven? All of ours did. The recipe actually called for Smarties, I wonder if they are more crack-resistant?)

Righto. One more row before bed…

6 Comments

Posted in Memes, Other Craft, Yarncraft

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Life Looks Better When…

Posted on June 27, 2009 | 6 comments

…on Monday, you take off with a baby, a ball of wool yarn, and a crochet hook, and go chill out with a bunch of crafty Owls for cheese and cider night.

…on Tuesday, you manage to purge five whole bags of kid’s clothes, shoes and books from the house (hurrah!), and come home from the op-shop with a very special purple spangled magician’s jacket for the dressups chest. (Girl child then wears the bling out to the post- and medicare offices, to the amusement of all).

…you forget what you did on Wednesday and Thursday, but that’s okay, they were probably boring days!

…on Friday, you head out to meet another bunch of lovely crafty girls for tea and cakes. (let’s not talk about the fact that on Friday I left the house without the nappy bag! Thank you Lara for bailing me out… twice!) Thank you to super-dooper Nikki M for hosting, and to Tania, Cathy, Louise, Lara, Cath, Jodie, Gina, Anna, Lara, Teegan, Margaret, Cathy, Nikki, Liz, Sandra, Fi, Ann Marie and Nikki (did I miss anyone!?) for the good time.

…on Saturday, you breakfast out on pancakes with a gorgeous family (well, mine, anyway 🙂 ), find a spangly top hat to go with spangly magician’s jacket, dress up the girl child and go a-partying (heck does that girl know how to party!) Come home, exhausted, and bum out on the couch with teh Internets until some ungodly hour.

…and on at least two of those nights, you manage to get some decent ess-el-ee-ee-pee. (Ssssh. Don’t say the ess-word out loud!)

Life looks better.

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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Censored

Posted on June 21, 2009 | 9 comments

It is now official. Too many people I know read this blog. I am now officially self-censoring. Do you think it’s strange that it’s easier to discuss certain things with complete strangers than with friends and family? Anyway. That’s me. Strange. So I’m not going to have a big old whiney rant, because all you out there who know me would just tell me to pull my socks up and get over myself. (Probably with good reason!) So let’s just have a picture from today, before today turned to shit.

Finn… and Finn:
FinnandFinn
(photo credit: Dermot)

Now. I would like a do-over on June please. And maybe also May. And some sleep (a lot of sleep). And no more family diseases for the rest of the year.

It’s only fair.

…

PS. Dear Brown Owls and Owlets who we met at the Aquarium today: We did have a lovely time, honestly. 🙂 Thanks to Pip and to Suze for organizing the excursion.

PPS. Dear New Readers: I don’t usually use bad words on my blog. Much :giggle:

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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No Creative Space

Posted on June 19, 2009 | 3 comments

There was no creative space for me yesterday, and here’s why:

Blah Day

Finn was (and is still) home with an ear infection. It was a doozy – his temp reached 39.6°C in the afternoon before the antibiotics kicked in, he couldn’t hear a thing, and his balance was so off that I had to hold onto him whenever he tried to walk. I’m always thankful for our GP – I have never been unable to get a same-day appointment as long as I ring first thing in the morning. This time we got to be the ones going in the back entrance, masked up (well, Finn was) into temporary ‘quarantine’, since even though I was certain it was an ear infection, Finn matched two of the symptoms for swine flu (fever, sore throat), so our clinic was taking necessary precautions. Fun.

Also, Rohan picked yesterday to sleep nowhere except on my shoulder, and Niamh… well, let’s just say that Niamh is not used to playing third fiddle. And she’s three. So yeah. Fun and games for all. I may have self-medicated with chocolate. A bit.

Finn’s on the improve today (though he’s still hard of hearing, which is proving… frustrating), and should have bounced back enough to make it to the Aquarium on Sunday to meet his feathered namesake!

So in lieu of anything crafty by me (and I’m beginning to think I may never craft again!), here’s a couple of snaps of things made by others, for Rohan:

The knitted blankie seen in the last post (and here) was made by my knitter-extraordinaire mother. As was this Baby Surprise jacket:
Rohan 3 Weeks
(Mum (mostly) doesn’t follow patterns, she just looks at a piece and figures out how it’s done. In her head! Crazy talent!)

Rohan was 3 weeks old in that pic – he’s long outgrown that gorgeous jumper. He has a bunch of other knits from Mum that I should devote an entire post to, really. I love, love, love the blankie, it is getting a lot of use.

Then there’s this very cute appliqued onesie from Claire, which he is about to grow out of any day now (it is killing me how fast this kid is growing!)
Onesie from Claire
It’s so nice to have some things made just for number three 🙂

3 Comments

Posted in Family, Other Craft, The Kids, Yarncraft

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Rohan

Posted on June 15, 2009 | 8 comments

Rohan-1-Week

You could be forgiven for forgetting I had recently had a third child, if you go only by my blogging of late. (If you know me in person, he’s hardly forgettable – I wear him everywhere I go 🙂 ). I don’t really know why I haven’t been moved to share every detail of either my third pregnancy or every minute of Rohan’s life-to-date. There’s a slight feeling of wanting to keep this one to myself, I think. He’s my last. My never-to-be-repeated. I already mentioned the little grieving process I was going through. It has been harder even than I anticipated, watching each day and week go by (so fast!) and knowing I would never again hold my one-day-old or one-week-old baby against my face and inhale that sweet baby scent. I will never again watch each little ‘first’ happen – first reach for a toy, first smile, first little vocalisations. So very very bittersweet.

I’m trying to shrug all that off though, as I enjoy this beautiful boy. We had a wonderful day and a half all alone on the weekend, opting out of a family do. Dermot’s grandmother has thirteen children, so we have a very large extended family; each year near her birthday we book a school camp for a weekend and four generations celebrate her birthday together. It’s actually lots of fun, but this time, I just needed a break. I needed to be not talked at for a bit, to not have to mediate every little grievance, to just hang out with my littlest one and do as little as possible. It was excellent. I think we both appreciated it.

Rohan-2-Months

So. Two months on. Doesn’t he look like somebody? Actually, he kind of looks like this somebody too 🙂 At least he (seems to have) escaped the curse of the Vulcan eyebrows!

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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