Retroblogging (via Finn)

So, forever ago, Mothers’ Day happened. Remember? I kept meaning to tell you about mine, because it actually was pretty darn perfect, as far as Mothers’ Days go. Then time slipped away from me (as it does), and I thought it was probably beyond reasonable. But I’ve since remembered that Finn actually documented the day, and so here, in his words, is our 2009 Mothers’ Day:

We went to the Yarra Valley Dairy and we had some dairy foods. Then we went to a winery. Mum and Dad tasted some wine. Then we had some food at a café. My sister and I had ice-cream and Mum and Dad had scones, jam and cream. I had lemonade and my sister had pineapple juice. Mum and Dad had coffee. Then we went home. We had a great Mother’s Day!

He forgot a couple of things – like the perfect bedtime the night before (all three – no tears – a feat that has not been repeated), Rohan treating us to the best night of his four-week-life, the wee bit of fabric shopping in Healesville (fabrics shown in this post), and the foray into Kennedy & Wilson in search of chocolate-y goodness. But I think he captured the rest of it perfectly… I wonder when he’ll want his own blog?

Mothers-Day
(I don’t like this photo of me a whole lot, but I’m taking to heart the recent advice of Miz Booshay and “getting in the picture“. There are so few photographs of me with my kids, and I’ll regret it later, I know. I need to just get over my issues. At least in this one, three out of the four of us are actually looking at the camera. Rohan can be excused just this once 🙂 )

And The Weiners Are…

(Winners are always weiners in our household!)

Courtesy of random.org, the winners of my SEWN giveaway are… dum ta da dummmm:

1. Simple Sewing was won by Justine (comment #35), and
2. Yeah, I made it myself was won by Sarah (comment #22)

Congratulations to you both – I’ll have your books in the mail to you just as soon as you let me know your details 🙂

Now… am off to soothe my poor throat with split pea and ham soup and take it easy for the rest of the night (I hope). We spent the weekend away with family and have brought home with us yet another random viral thing. Grrr. (No, not swine flu!)

Giveaways Galore

How did you fare in the Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway Day? I did very well for myself indeed. Unfortunately I let the deadline for giving stuff away slip by me (which is why I’m joining in a different giveaway, see below…), but I had a ball finding new blogs and entering a couple of dozen giveaways. And I won two! Firstly, I was the lucky recipient of a voucher to Lauren Williams’ madeit store. Lauren creates jewellery pieces using fabric covered buttons. I chose these two pieces:
LaurenWilliams

And I love them both!

Secondly, on its way to join my small but growing quilt book collection, will be the learn to quilt book given away by Dianna of “Someday I’ll Be…“. Thankyou Dianna 🙂

Which brings me to my giveaway. I’m signing on to ‘attend’ the SEWN Launch party. Have you heard about this? SEWN is the new online quilting and sewing community about to launch. As part of the party, loads of blogs are signing up to giveaway free stuff, and you can win prizes at the site as well.

What am I giving away? These two books:
Giveaway
1. Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter, and
2. Yeah, I made it myself by Eithne Farry

How do you win? Simply leave a comment on this post, telling me which of these books you’d like to win (or ‘both’, if you want to be in the running for either book), and you’ll be in the running to win 🙂 Make sure to leave an email address so I can contact you. I’ll randomly draw two winners on Monday June 8th, at (let’s say) 6pm Melbourne time. (That’s Melbourne, Australia, not the other one!) Good luck!

Lastly, I know this has been a pretty Niamh-centric blog of late, but I just have to show you her creative space! A friend gave her a sticky-foam-shapes craft kit for her birthday, and would you believe this occupied her for two straight hours today?! That is simply astounding for a three year old, if you ask me!

NiamhCreativeSpace

My Creative Space

Have been practicing my free motion quilting. I first tried this on Saturday. Forgetting to switch to the darning foot was not a good start! I’m getting a little better. It all goes awry when I actually think about it; seems to work much better when I switch off my brain – which makes it just about the perfect activity for me right now!

Creative-Space-Jun-4

Kirsty set us a challenge to include heart(s) in our creative spaces today. Uh… no prizes for finding mine :giggle: (But click for a bigger pic if you need to). That was fun!

PS: There are two! (But they’re kinda the same)

Three

A sweet little girl called Molly came to live with us today.
Molly

Molly’s name used to be Jeanette, but a certain newly-minted three year old declared with authority as the wrapping came off today that “her name is Molly”. Just quietly, I think Molly suits her a little better, don’t you? (Also, just quietly, with Niamh’s propensity for making up wacky and unpronounceable names, it was a bit of a relief to hear just ‘Molly’!)

Molly and Niamh seem to get along just fine. There has been a lot of “Molly & Me….” action today.
Niamh-Molly

Molly came with us to playgroup, where we celebrated Three with monster cupcakes, design and details of which were overseen by the creative director herself. (I am just the hired help).
Monster-Cakes

I wonder how the other mothers appreciated me dosing their young ‘uns up with sugar, chocolate and coffee laden cakes? Heh.

Happy Birthday Niamh. Life just wouldn’t be the same, sweet one.

Matryoshka Applique (Gezundheit!)

Matryoshka-Top
Neither camera nor model would co-operate this morning, and it’s tricky to photograph white on a sunny day. But you get the idea. This was my first attempt at machine applique, and perhaps given that, I should have tried on something other than stretch fabric, and taken a bit more time to practice. But she wanted to “wear it now”, so I did my best.

And I remembered why I failed my first high-school sewing test. Can’t sew curves!

Stitches!

And not of the crafty kind. Providing mounting evidence that he is cut from the same cloth as his clumsy mother, Finn took a fall at swimming last night and split his chin open. Sheesh!

Picture after the break – don’t worry, it’s not too vile, I’m just protecting the sqeamish 🙂
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My Creative Space

I wasn’t sure whether to show you this end:
Creative-Space-May-28-1

Or this end (eeeek):
Creative-Space-May-28-2

Of my creative space (aka “the ironing board”, and yes, that hideous green-ness is the ironing board cover, and yes, a new one is on my to-make list!) today! This spot has obviously become a dumping ground for the remains of projects past. It was actually worse than this! I had to move things to iron a pair of school pants for Finn this morning (it’s actually a rare occurrence that I iron clothes at all – but they were still damp!)

The Robert Kaufman music fabric up there is for a new bag for Finn’s piano books. They’re currently residing in last year’s school reader bag, which is becoming increasingly, embarrassingly decrepit. Must really get onto that. The other pending project involves cutting a matryoshka doll out of that fabric and appliqueing it onto a white tee for Niamh. I get fed up with all the pink-pink-pink-pink-pink-purple-pink of little girls’ clothing, so I’ve been meaning to do a few little things like this for her.

Oh, and while we’re here, how about a finished object from a couple of weeks ago? Here’s the patchwork ball I was working on in the car – it was surprisingly satisfying to hand-stitch something from start to finish. I need more handwork projects like this, I think.
Patchwork-Ball

For more creative spaces, pay Kirsty a visit 🙂

My creative space

Creative-Space-May-21

…won’t be seeing much in the way of creativity today. There is more mess in my house than house, so I should probably do something about that instead. But I did want to show you my (other) new baby. I finally kicked my old Janome to the kerb a couple of weeks ago and bought something with bells and whistles. I confess, I really wanted a Bernina, but for the same bells and whistles, I would have had to pay twice the price, so this is my compromise, and I do really like it… so far. I’ve had not a lot of sewing time on it yet, obviously. But what could that be in the artfully blurred background? Could it be my (finished) blocks for the Oh Fransson! Quiltalong? Why yes, yes it could. Now I need to buy sashing, batting, backing & binding fabrics, learn to quilt on this new machine o’ mine, and I might actually turn out a quilt sometime soon! (Or not soon. You know. Either is good).

Visit Kirsty for more of today’s Creative Spaces.

Now… about that mess… :yuk:

Blog Blah

Having a minor issue with the previous blog post not showing up in feed readers. Let’s see if this one shows up…
Oh, and I finally fixed my pesky little smilies 🙂

Edit: Hmmmm, nope, not yet. What the heck is going on, I wonder?

Edit again: Nevermind, they eventually both came through. Wonders of technology!