tutu cute

She spins around, hands above head, creating her own music “da da dum, da da dum” the little voice tinkles, until she twirls to a stop, one foot pointed to the side. At 16 months, she is too small for ballet lessons, but, inspired by a friend and my little dancer, we had our afternoon craft sorted. The boys slept as she delightfully helped me rummage through the fabric tub, and the scraps I knew were in there quickly surfaced, and to my delight, matched perfectly with some larger peices in a bag at the top of the tub.

 

We sit side by side on the loungeroom floor, and I lay out the fabric. A shiny piece of teal organza catches her eye, and she twirls with delight as it billows behind her. I call her back, and roughly measure the length I’ve chosen, to ensure it will fit right. She squeals and runs of as I begin looping layers of organza around the elastic loop on my leg. Her breathy giggles are warm in my ear as she runs back to me, and tries to pull it away from me. Run, pull. Run, pull. And at last it is finished, and she snatches it and runs away to inspect it. As I call, she reluctantly returns, and I help her step in, before she floats off in a puff of orange and pink.

 

 

It’s been a quiet day in the nest today, with three little people and their mama recovering from a tummy bug. Movies for them, pottering about cleaning interspersed with snuggles and Facebook for me. Thank goodness for iPhones. A story or two, long naps, a bit of craftiness. Slowly beginning to reassemble the bombsite formerly known as my studio. Taking it slow and easing into the weekend. Show weekend. Getting our tummies better so we can abuse them with chips and pluto pups and way too much fairy floss. Where’s that ferris wheel? Plenty of fun to be had, the weekend’s here at last. Bring it on!

organisation central

The hours I spend sitting and feeding my tiny 11-day-old daughter are some of the most special. With two small boys playing at my feet, or bringing stories to read, or happily playing in the toy room, the hours pass in a haze of bonding and adoration. Who cuddles Butterfly next. Who picks the story. What game to play.

The practical side of extended hours of feeding involves, for me at least, the collection and storage of various bits of baby “stuff”. Nursing pads. Lansinoh. A cloth nappy for wiping possets. Small wipes and a spare nappy or two for emergency changes in the night. Hand santiser post-emergency-change. Large water bottle.

Within days of her birth, the “stuff” accumulating on the window sill behind my favourite feeding chair was driving me bonkers. So with husband still home, and enjoying every minute of hanging with his two small companions, I secluded myself in the studio.

One piece of curtain fabric and half an hour or so of sewing, and I had a little fabric box to keep my bits and bobs in order. I used the same fabric as the curtain tie-backs, so the box doesn’t look *too* far out of place.

 

 

Today is more “finding of the feet”. Maybe five or ten stolen minutes in the sewing room as a softie nears completion. Colouring. Lego. Stories. I think I’m getting the hang of this three children business. Maybe. Ask me again next week.

digger tutorial.

A little boy once had an obsession with diggers. His mummy, an obsession with creating. One met the other, and the digger softie was born! After a couple of requests, I have typed up a basic outline of how I went from vague idea to finished softie. The pattern and process is all my own design, please do not reproduce this tutorial, or use it to create softies for sale without permission. Thanks!

MATERIALS: Small amount of fabric for sides (where I used spotted flannel) -  one fat quarter would get the sides for at least two softies, but I just used scraps; small but long piece of fabric for middle (where I used orange/purple) – again, I only used fat quarters; thread; sewing machine; printer for pattern; hand sewing needle; pins; scissors; healthy sense of adventure.

METHOD (or lack thereof):

1) print the pattern below at A4 size.

2) cut out paper patterns and lay on a double layer of fabric, right sides together.

3) pin to fabric, and cut out fabric – add your preferred seam allowance as you cut. This should give you two large digger pieces and two small scoop pieces.

4) cut a 4.5″ wide strip of fabric that will be used to join the two halves together. I only had a fat quarter of the orange fabric I wanted to use, so on one end I attached a 4.5×2.5″ peice of purple to form the windscreen.

5) Press the first 1/4″ inch of fabric of the strip  under the rest, so you have a small segment right sides together. As I was adding a windscreen, I pressed under the purple end. Pin this folded end in place on one side piece. – for my digger, it was where the bottom of the windscreen would sit. Add a second pin approximately 1/2″ up from the first tog et your starting alignment right. This is the only pinning I did.

6) SEWING – I just fed the strip of fabric in with one hand, and slowly worked my way around the digger shape. As the corner curves were quite gentle, I could ease my fabric around, and didn’t get too many gathers, but didn’t worry if there were some. I slowly worked around, and overlapped the strip at the starting point by around 1/2 – 1″. I then zig-zagged around the edges.

7) Trim any excess from the 4.5″ strip.

8 ) Line up the second side piece, and pin the top and bottom of the windscreen. Attach the second side as per step 6.

9) Clip the corner at the bottom of the windscreen, and turn the digger right side in.

10) Add stuffing, and stitch the bottom of the windscreen closed. (NB – If you aren’t adding a windscreen, you could put the starting point, and hence the seam, at the bottom of your digger if preferred.)

10a) Yet to be done on my version, but I intend to use some black embroidery cotton and chain stitch around the  window, and add some wipers as well. Possibly a couple of black buttons for wheels, and some vlisofix and spare fabric to add windows. One day. Embellish your digger as you see fit!

11) – Construct the scoop in the same manner, creating the closure seam at the back.

12) Stitch the scoop to the digger, fixing firmly. The first thing my not-quite-two-year-old did was attempt to remove the scoop!

13) Blog your softie and add a comment to this post so I can come find it!

I hope this tutorial is easy enough to understand. I did it as simply and as lazily as I could, hence the lack of pinning etc. I just kind of worked by feel, and didn’t pressure myself to make it perfect. It’s just a cuddle toy for my little boy, and he’s not too fussy about gathers in corners or if the windscreen didn’t line up quite right. I hope your children enjoy their digger as much as little Chubba Bubba does his.

Next on the softie list, an aeroplane!

nappy pouch.

We aare soon travelling, and with two small children, that means a large bag of nappies, clothes, toys, snacks, drinks,and assorted toddler paraphenalia that two small children seem to require. Running Bear tends to get frustrated come change time, as it means hauling large bag out, sifting through to find the nappies that have invariably drifted to the bottom, change child, rearrange bag so it closes, load child and bag back in car.

To make life easier, I whipped up a little pouch to hold one or two nappies, some wipes and a couple of nappy sacks. And the ever-important hand sanitiser gel.

The top of the bag comes from a pair of jeans that needed taking up. Purchased when pregnant with Bear four years ago, they are my pregnancy staple. But being a bit long, and given my propensity to walking everywhere, the cuffs were worn, frayed and plain old daggy. So out came the scissors and up went the jeans. Unfortunately, we recently cleared out a lot of excess “stuff” from my studio, and it appears the pedal for my overlocker has been put somewhere “safe” – take my word for it, overlocking two legs of wide jeans using the advance wheel, not so good for your wrist!

I had intended on French-seaming the sides, as the bag isn’t lined, but the bulk was too much, between the two layers of denim (and more up the top with the “hems”), plus the two layers of rubber-backed curtain fabric I used for the foundation, so I simply stitched right-sides-together and added a basic grosgrain ribbon binding.

Today was supposed to see the quilting of one HST quilt done, and the other started. My deadline for quilting + binding attached is this weekend. However, a certain small toddler has decided that sleep is over-rated. I had time for lunch and getting two small triangles quilted before he woke, and now he’s refusing to sleep. Of course. So it seems a change of plan is in order. A cubby house. Some Lego and trains. Plenty of books. Maybe some baking since it appears someone has inhaled the chocolate we baked only yesterday. A hot coffee while watching the rain fall. Best laid plans of mice and men be darned, these boys and I shall find some fun!

tap-tap-tap… the connected generation.

When pregnant with both the boys, I craved sweet things. It was nothing unusual for me to burn through a packet of smarties in a day. Yes. The family sized one. Seriously. I’m talking major addiction. This time, though, the thought of chocolate has made me want to run to the nearest bucket. My cravings have been much more towards the savoury end of the scale. I went through a brief party-pie phase, where lunch everyday would be 6 party pies, cooked two at a time to be piping-burn-the-roof-of-my-mouth hot. After two or three weeks, the party-pies gave way to bacon and eggs. Big time. Two eggs, two short-cut rashers of bacon (sans fat), and two golden pieces of toast every morning. In two serves, so it was nice and hot. Often some for lunch as well. And bacon and eggs for afternoon tea wasn’t an uncommon occurance.

Which means we are up to our ears in egg cartons. Some have been sent to my parents’, hopefully to return full of yummy farm-fresh eggs. Some have made it to the recycling bin.

And some have been turned into computer keyboards for little boys…

It’s been a lovely homey day today. Cardboard computers, sandpits, swings. Finding my mojo and finally back in the groove. Some sewing. Some unpicking. A bit of work. Planning. Dreaming. Waiting. Looking forward and looking up. Hello groove, nice to see you again, let’s do this!

eggsellent.

As I stand at the sink, bubbles swirling around my arms, I hear the rattle, clink, thunk of two small boys ferreting through the recycling box. A small box hits the floor, maybe the muesli bar box by the sound of it, nothing too substantial. Then comes the double plunk-ding of a soft drink bottle landing cap first on the floor. It is soon joined by several more boxes, another bottle, and the deeper “clunk” of a glass jar. An excited yelp, and Master Three appears at my elbow. “We make someding mummy? Do craft wiv dis?” he asks, eyes wide as he triumphantly waves an egg carton in front of him. “Can we make a puppet show mummy?”

I dry my hands, and rummage through the craft box. Texta. Wool. Paddle pop sticks. Sticky tape. A little of this, a squiggle of that, and our puppets were ready for their debut performance.

Meet Jerry Caterpillar and Rebecca Rabbit. With the top of the Lego box gangpressed into service as a stage, our puppet show was ready to begin. “hello, I’m Jerry.” “hello, I’m Rebecca”. Ummm. Errr. Ahhh. And then, finally, inspiration. Rebecca needs to go to swimming lessons, but is a wee bit scared. And so on we went, until both Rebecca and Bear were jumping out of their skin excited for swimming. We’ll see if it works next week!

Today I awoke to another dreary grey sky. A cooler morning, that will be perfect for some outside play. Swinging. Sliding. Building tunnels in the sand. Maybe a book for mummy. And when the rain threatens, we’ve got a couple more canvases to paint. A change quilt to sew for a dear friend, welcomng their first little boy into the world. Trying my best not to get clucky. Failing miserably. Oh well. Hello Thursday, we’ve got big plans for you. Let’s do this!

A public service announcement…

If you are making playdough with your toddler, and he starts listing out the ingredients needed as you leave the room to change the baby’s nappy, and then there is a long silence, be afriad, be very afraid.

 

A certain toddler, who shall remain nameles *cough*Bear*cough* got all excited at the idea of sticky, gooey, tactile playdough. “Bwoo, please mummy?”. Of course, I assured him, blue it shall be. As I left the room bearing a smelly baby on one hip, the little ratbag was rummaging through the cupboard. Nothing too much he could get up to, thought I. “BWOO!” came the triumphant cry. Still not overly concerned at this stage, the actual colouring is in a box, and the lids can be a bit sticky. *chirp, chirp* Silence. Why was I not concerned?

 

Baby de-stunk, and back into the kitchen we go. Bear has managed to get the small blue bottle out of the box, lid off, and emptied the enitre thing (luckily) into the bowl. Thankfully it was only a small bottle, but still, this playdough was going to be a very vivid blue!

 

We used a recipe I found here, but due to an entire bottle fo food dye added as opposed to the few drops suggested, we had to add a bit more flour. I did opt for some variety and broke the blue into three portion & with the aid of half a bottle of red and half a bottle of green, managed to turn one portion purple and the other green. Not really sure why I bothered really, as all three portions were soon mixed back together to make a lovely teal blue.

 

 

For the 5 minutes it took to make this, it certainly has been good “value”. Cooking dinner, washing dishes, anything that even vaguely suggests being in the kitchen brings cries of “I make (play with!) my playdough mummy?”.

 

Lots more to blog, when I get time. We’ve had a lovely quite morning so far. Books read, songs sung, dvds watched. Biscuits baked, patterns cut, diggers made. Books finished. And the afternoon is going to be pretty awesome too. A bit of work, some tidying up. Sewing a gift. Taking some photos. Stretching my creative wings and SOARING! Let’s do this!

Sock it to me…

The sky was a deep grey, filled with the promise of a cosy inside day, warm drinks, crafty projects & snuggles on the lounge. With the requisite housework dealt with, the baby asleep, and the morning’s coffee disposed of, the toddler and I settled ourselves in the studio, and got messy with socks, buttons & glue.

 

 

These little monsters live on buttons, apparently. My poor old button collection has spent many hours strewn over the studio floor, awaiting their fate as puppet fodder.

 

With socks puppets, books, autumn leaves & meeting with friends, today has been fantastic. After an action packed morning, both boys are slumbering peacefully in their beds, and I have an itch I need to scratch. To paint, to sew, to get messy & creative & DO SOMETHING. Maybe starting with a coffee as I bask in the glory of silence. Music, drawing, painting. I need to do some photo “stuff”. A chapter or two of my book. Relaxing, unwinding, being. I see a long weekend heading this way, and I’m in holiday mode already… let’s do this!

Super Saturday

What a great day. Lots of creative stuff. Lots of fun with my boys. Lots of smiles as I watched my boys with their daddy. Lots of lazy weekend happiness.

 

Naptime Friday, I did a little bit of tidying, with the intention of getting the whole studio spotless. Then I came across some fabric that the toddler picked last time we were at the fabric shop. I already had a project in mind, so thought I may as well get it done, and then I could pack away the sewing machine as well. (Gotta love the logic of the eternal procrastinator!) So Not only did I get it done, but it even got a test-drive this afternoon.

 

 

Lots of creative stuff happening – keep an eye out for some cards to be blogged soon!

Autumn blooms

There is a rare & delicate flower, I have found, that dares only bloom when it’s true beauty may be appreciated. When most others tremble at the though of a frost, and their petals wither & fall. When a small boy reach for glue, paper, scissors. And of course, the ever-handy egg carton!

 

So much fun we had to do it all over again this morning

 

Love, love, love toddler craft. Messy, crazy, unpredictable. My little man is a child after my own heart, and loves cutting, gluing, painting. Creating. And being with Mummy. He loves to sit on my lap as I  sew, watch me cut fabric, draw when I draw, getting messy together. Though sometimes I wish his drawing requests would bo for something other than “Thomas please, Mummy, a real big one. In yellow. And maybe some green”, I love nothing more than exploring our creativity together.

 

I’m riding the “don’t think” train today, and feeling like I’ve accomplished a lot (not that it looks like it). With children mid-nap, I’m going to roll with the motivation, and after a spot of housework, I’m going to tidy this studio and CREATE. Sew, paint, scrapbook. I have a creative itch that needs scratching, so let’s do this!